Five Day Weekend
by Aran'sApprentice-Meahow
Summary: The military had gotten the six of them into the hotel as a sort of bribe, but with the weather, Riza thought, even dress up functions might be wasted on keeping the public happy. Ah well... Royai, maybe other pairings... hehehe
1. Flu Season

A/N this is really random. I know where I'm going, but not how to get there, soo…heheheh? …Anyway, hopefully it won't have more than five chapters.

And don't worry, royai lovers will be sated by the end.

Promise.

…Unless you're a fan of lemons, if which you should run screaming from the room in frustration now, before it is necessitated by the story. Enjoy!

XXXX

Chapter One: Flu Season

They were in two cars: Mustang, Falman, and Fuery in one, and Havoc, Breda, and Hawkeye in the other. Traffic was unusually good, but that was because it was the holidays; nor could they take advantage of it, because the weather was unusually bad.

"Man," Second Lieutenant Heymans Breda said, tapping the glass of his window. "I _hate_ the rain." The glass fogged around his broad hand, beyond which droplets of water were pelting the vehicle, surrounding it in a cocoon of isolation. The sound of it drummed on their ears.

Second Lieutenant Jean Havoc, who was sitting on the opposite side of the back seat from him, leaning casually on his windowsill, shook his head with a secretive smile on his face. "Huh. I like it."

"So do I," First Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye said, from the driver's seat. "It always makes the world look clean." The car's tires squealed against wet cobbles as she drove through a puddle, spraying brown water against the windshield. The woman's lips pursed.

"I was going to say that it's a good excuse to get close to a girl when you're on a date," Havoc smirked. "It's harder than you think, you know!"

"That wasn't what I had in mind." Riza glanced into the rearview mirror as a barrage of furious coughing wracked the backseat, followed quickly by military-discreet frowns. "Sorry, Sir," Breda offered, "but we figured as much."

Riza had the distinct feeling that they were both trying to imagine her walking in the rain with a date, and happily discerned from the coughing that both were failing miserably. Or perhaps the fact that it was winter—the height of flu season—was a factor. In any case, they should all be at the hotel soon; if, a few miles ahead of them, Colonel Roy Mustang didn't mistake a concrete storefront for a side street through rain and reckless driving. She would have to yell at him when they reached their destination. Black Hayate was in his vehicle.

The rain pounding on flat metal roof claimed the attention of the three for the rest of the journey, a paltry sum of ten more minutes; and then the car stopped, and there was a mad and sodden rush to snatch the luggage from the trunk and splash up the steps and into the lobby of Sherman's Inn, some place that the military had paid their way into as a sort of bribe. Standing there steaming and disheveled in the sudden light, Hawkeye led the way, trailing suitcases, to the hotel's front desk.

"Do you have a reservation?" The young woman at the desk had a small, cheerful face, topped by a chestnut bun and rectangular glasses. The lieutenant nodded. "Six adjacent rooms…" As the receptionist opened her mouth to ask the name, Riza opened her breast pocket and slid out a badge—the military's seal, with a paper folded underneath it. Pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose, the receptionist stared at the seal for a moment—opened the paper, cocked her head a little further to the side—and smiled, nodding. "Thank you very much, Ma'am. Your rooms are on the third floor—" a jingle of keys was passed over the counter— "And all of you, please enjoy your stay!"

Riza handed a set of keys each to Havoc and Breda; the meaning, she thought, was clear. Shooting her glances which she waved away, they started off toward the stairs. "Ma'am?" asked the receptionist.

"The other half of the party already came in, right? Three more military men…with a dog?"

A puzzled expression crossed the woman's face. "I'm sorry, ma'am, I don't believe I've seen them. Could it have been more than an hour ago? That's when my shift started—"

"No, I don't think so." Riza shook her head resignedly. Smiling heavily, she said, "Thank you. Could you let us know when they arrive, please? I have someone to…admonish."

"Of course, ma'am. Have a nice night." The chestnut-haired woman watched the taller blonde gather and carry her own two suitcases up the stairs after her companions.

XXXX

There was some sort of festival or event going on in this particular hotel the day after tomorrow. Riza had looked over the paperwork Mustang had tossed to her, but she hadn't really comprehended it, being preoccupied with packing. Perhaps later she would read it thoroughly, stuffed as it was now in the suitcase sitting on her bed. Technically all six of them were on break—a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence—but the military had taken notice of good fortune and bundled them off to attend some dress functions that it was hosting to keep the public happy.

Although at this rate, the rain would cancel any happiness, with the exception of the nefariously-plotting Lieutenant Havoc. It was certainly canceling any attempt at rest that Hawkeye tried to scrounge from it. She wondered how Black Hayate was doing, having been commandeered by Master Sergeant Kain Fuery for the journey. She wondered whether Mustang had driven the others insane yet. In this case, literally. Maybe he'd missed the turnoff. Maybe—

Her phone rang. Riza pounced on it before either Havoc or Breda could pick up theirs, in case the office was calling all of them at once. Those two would never do in case of an emergency.

"Hello?"

"Hello?" It was a woman's voice. Hawkeye sighed. "Yes?" she asked, recognizing the receptionist.

Sounding a touch worried, the woman said, "You have a call from an outside line."

"Can I _please_ talk to them?"

"Of course." There was a brief silence, and then, among a haze of what sounded like pounding rain, "Hello?" said the voice of Warrant Officer Vato Falman, "Uh…"

"Falman, where are you?" Riza demanded.

"Ah! First Lieutenant Hawkeye! Well, we're actually about three blocks from the hotel."

"Why aren't you here yet? You were ahead of us, correct?"

"Sir, I hate to say this, but…" Riza waited for the worst. On the phone line, she heard a sudden change in the intensity of the rain's white noise and a few stutters from Falman. "Spit it out, Warrant Officer!" she snapped.

"Well…"

From in the background, a familiar voice, fuzzy with distance. "Warrant Officer, just tell the First Lieutenant that the damn dog ran away from the damn car. I know it's her." Riza blinked. Colonel Roy Mustang was as alive and as blunt as ever.

"Basically, Sir, the dog ran away from the car."

Riza suppressed a spontaneous snicker. The situation called for a degree of seriousness. What she asked was, "Have you found him?"

"No Sir, we haven't."

"What's your exact location?"

"Two blocks to the south and one to the east, Sir. We're parked on the right-hand side, by a phone booth…what? Ah! Sorry, Colonel, Sir…"

"Thank you, Warrant Officer, that will be fine," Riza said, trying to hear over the sounds of Mustang's arguing voice.

"Didn't I say not to tell her where we are—dammit, give me the phone." Roy grabbed the telephone halfway out of his stuttering subordinate's hands. "Lieutenant, don't you dare leave that hotel. I know it's what you're thinking. That's an order—"

"Sir," Falman said stiffly, looking down at his dripping and thunderous superior, "I believe she hung up already."

XXXX

A door slammed in the hallway, followed by a jingle of keys. Havoc looked up from his concentration, where he held a telephone, in his left hand, over a hand of cards in his right. A grin worked its way across his face.

"Hey," he said to Breda, who was seated on the floor next to him, also hiding his cards and also leaned over the receiver, "How much do you wanna bet that she stops to ask us for help?"

"Hey," Breda replied, "Just because I _look_ like a meathead doesn't mean I am one."

"No kidding," Havoc said, the sound of footsteps in the hallway fading from his ears. He added, "Five that she finds the dog in ten minutes."

"Ten that they don't find it for three hours."

"Fifteen that they can't find the hotel afterward."

"Twenty that they can, but decide to sleep in the car instead."

Havoc raised his eyebrows. "Twenty-five that they all come back with fevers. Running around in the rain in the middle of flu season."

"Thirty," Breda said disgustedly, "That the stupid dog is having the time of its mangy life."

XXXX

A/N: Soo… you likey? Review pweez! I will write more…. though I have homework to do at the moment. Again, don't worry, royai fans. there is more to come. -wild snicker- the rating is more for comprehension level than the content itself, btw. Lemons are not my thing, as mentioned earlier.

I can have fun without hentai….

AA-M


	2. Holiday Cheer

Bla bla bla…disclaimer…bla bla bla…me babbling…bla bla royai fans……..

Hokay, on with the story! I'm writing this chapter fast because I have something to prove…I think… anyways, I would write it otherwise, even if I weren't…trying to…

Whatever.

XXXX

Chapter Two: Holiday Cheer

Maybe, Riza thought as she half-jogged down the sidewalk, huddled into her overcoat with her hair rapidly being plastered to her face by driving rain, she'd underestimated the weather. Thunderheads made the sky above about the same color as the city below; except when the buildings were brick, and the air was white with far-off lightning. She'd parked at the opening of the side-street, from which she could just make out the vague outlines of a telephone booth and a car that was probably the military's. Perhaps, again, it would have been better to get a little closer…but if Black Hayate was anywhere in the area…

"Black Hayate!" she called out into the weather. "Hayate, _come_!" _Now_, before someone froze to death. Or the Colonel torches you, she thought strongly at the dog.

A figure came pounding up out of the rain, but it wasn't Hayate. It was Master Sergeant Kain Fuery, looking slightly canine himself, the same sort of dog he would've pulled out of the rain if he saw it.

Call a dog, get a soldier, Riza thought uncharitably. What she said was, "Hello, Master Sergeant. How's the search going?"

"We haven't found him yet…Sir," Fuery said, without meeting her eyes. He was probably waiting for a how-the-_heck_-did-it-get-out-in-the-first-place, but Riza let him simmer in his own guilt for a little while before asking, "Where have you looked for him?"

"Everywhere I thought a dog could be, Sir!" Fuery said abashedly.

"I think the question is, Lieutenant, where _haven't_ we looked for him?"

Riza snapped to attention as Colonel Mustang came slogging through the gutter behind her, looking… Well, matching the weather, she decided. She also decided not to laugh. "Ah, hello, Colonel," she said pleasantly, feeling raindrops pelting her head.

"Hello indeed. Lieutenant, would you mind telling me _why_ you're here?"

Fuery backed away slightly. "I'll…look underneath the car," he offered, and disappeared.

"To look for my dog, Sir."

Roy stared at her for a moment before deciding that it was wet, he was cold, and the First Lieutenant could catch as _many_ colds as she wanted; he wasn't going to stop her. "You'd better get on it, then," he said, and walked away, scanning the grey curtains of rain for anything that looked like it could be the rat…er, dog. Behind him at the car, he heard Hawkeye questioning the Master Sergeant: "How did he get away? Where did he go?"

"Well, he was staring out the window and I thought he needed air.."

Roy snorted. Fuery continued.

"But I guess he was looking at a cat or something, because I opened the window…"

"In the pouring rain," Roy muttered.

"…And…well, Sir, he jumped out."

There was a click behind them and Roy smiled inwardly, moving off down the sidewalk to the sounds of rain and "Really, Sir! No, I swear, we were going less than ten miles an hour…if he'd hurt himself, Sir, he wouldn't have gone that _fast_…"

"Very well, Master Sergeant," Riza said with a sigh, sticking her gun back into her belt. "How have you been searching for him?"

"We're just looking back and forth along the street…"

The woman made another quick decision. "Well, go find Falman and tell him that you are to conduct another, _orderly_ combing of the area. Spread out and search parallel areas on either side of the street. Don't go off running unless you're sure you've seen him, and be sure to tell someone else. Understand?"

"Yes, Sir," Fuery said meekly, and pattered off. Men, Riza thought—they could fix a circuit box or chase down a criminal, but searching for a missing dog seemed to be beyond their organizational capabilities. Oh, wait. What organizational capabilities? She started after Mustang.

Walking fast to catch up with her superior, Riza splashed through a myriad of puddles, each one dirtier than the next. This uniform would have to be dry-cleaned anyway. Rain beat down uncomfortably on her neck and dripped down under her already-soaked coat to the back of her undershirt, where she could already feel a wet stain spreading. The other three must be drenched already—another good reason to finish up quickly. Just ahead of her, Mustang was turning off into an alley, peering behind trashcans.

"Colonel!"

Roy's boots were waterproof, but they didn't protect from the rain that fell in between the shoe rim and his ankles, seeping through his tucked-in pant cuffs. He could feel his socks squishing with every step. Not to mention every other article of clothing on his body. He didn't turn to acknowledge the shout, but he motioned behind him vaguely with a hand, hoping that Lieutenant Hawkeye would understand what he was signaling better than he did, which was what usually happened.

Whether or not she _acted_ like she understood—well, that was another story.

"Sir, I just got done telling Fuery and Falman to search in an orderly fashion." She came up beside him, blonde hair darkly wet and clinging in slick ropes to her face. Rainwater splattered off the tip of her nose. He grunted at her and got down on his knees, peering underneath a pile of crates stacked haphazardly against the wall of the alley. "You could've stayed at the hotel," he said, with a feeling that this was like battling a homunculus. However many times you thought you'd killed Hawkeye's stubbornness, it wouldn't _stay_ dead. "I'm completely capable of keeping my subordinates in order."

"Of course, Sir. I just wanted to assure the safety of my dog."

Water stains were spreading up Roy's knees. He hadn't thought his pants could _get_ wetter, but apparently, he'd underestimated the power of rainstorms. "If I can't keep my subordinates safe from the big things," he muttered under his breath, "At least let me take care of the small ones. Hey!" he added, louder, as a shadow of motion caught his eye. "Is that you, you stupid dog? Get out here now, you fleabag!"

Riza stared down at him, crouched as he was in a puddle and yelling at what might or might not be her dog. "If he's in there, you're not going to get him out that way, Sir," she admonished. "Black Hayate," she said severely toward the crates, "Come!"

At the command a muffled yap was heard, and a streak of shivering black and white shot out from under the crates, knocked past Mustang's elbow, and jumped up on Riza's legs, tongue hanging out apologetically. She scooped the shivering dog up in her arms, ignoring the mudstains now liberally blossoming across her calves, midsection, and the several other areas where they would be most unbecoming. She then turned her attention to Mustang, whose balance had been…_upset_ by Black Hayate's abandon.

"Damn dog," the Colonel hissed, spitting water out of his mouth, raising his head from its position on the unforgiving cobbles. He levered himself up, wiping a grit of pebbles from his cheeks, and loomed over the Lieutenant and her pet. Cofee-colored stains spread up his white shirt.

"Are you alright, Sir—" Riza began, but dropped her sentence as Black Hayate wriggled from her grasp and pelted off, Mustang thundering "Don't play with _fire_, mutt!" behind him. Scant seconds later, Riza was left alone in the alley with the sounds of furious footsteps receding into the rain.

Military men and dogs…

She wheeled and gave chase.

XXXX

"I got him! I got him!" Fuery cried fifteen minutes later. "Really this time, Sir!"

And it was true. With emphasis on 'this time', the Master Sergeant actually had managed to capture the squirming and soaking dog, who between the fireballs Roy had been shooting and the frantic arms of all the others would probably be tired for a week afterward. If he wasn't such a _dog_, Roy thought. He stormed up to Fuery and raised his hand to smack it on the head, just once.

Smiling in that innocent way that only dogs can, Black Hayate decided that now was a good time to lick the Colonel's fingers.

"I _hate_ that dog," Roy said vehemently. He would just have to kill it later, when it wasn't using its cuteness to charm his subordinates. He, Roy Mustang, wasn't fooled for an instant by its false show of…loving affection… "Stupid thing," he said again, just to make sure nobody thought he was softening up.

Appropriating the dog in question from Fuery, First Lieutenant Hawkeye tutted at the Colonel. "Sir, if you threaten my dog again, I will have to retaliate." Her hand was hovering about her belt, where he knew a handgun was concealed. Roy frowned at her and stumped off toward the car. "Now that the _animal_ is under control, we can finish our commute. I'm sure the hotel will be full of holiday cheer to warm us up."

Riza watched him get into the driver's seat of the military vehicle, while Falman and Fuery slid suddenly into the back. His white shirt had taken on more of a brown color in places and it was clinging limply to the muscles on his back…

The woman frowned suddenly. Idiot. Raindrops were still pounding her back, but, sheltering the muddy dog in her arms as best she could, she headed off at a brisk clip toward the other car at the end of the street.

"First Lieutenant! Where are you going?" Mustang called, leaning out the window behind her. The car's engine started, but he didn't pull away yet.

"To get the other car."

"I'll drive you to it. Get in."

"It's two blocks away, sir!"

"Get in, Lieutenant."

Sighing heavily, Riza slipped in the passenger door as they pulled up beside her. "We've been out in the rain for an hour, Sir," she said. "Would five minutes really matter that much?"

"It's what we do."

"Speaking of that, Sir," Riza added as she remembered, brandishing a finger at the bare-armed man in the driver's seat, "Why aren't you wearing your coat?"

"I left it in the back. Just another thing to clean up afterward—I still would've gotten soaked." They were reaching the end of the street, Riza's vehicle nearly visible through the sheets of rain. Roy stopped their car next to it and was immensely annoyed when Hawkeye got out and went around to the back instead of immediately to the relative dryness of the other car. "Lieutenant—" he started, hearing a clunk as the trunk was opened, obscuring his vision in the rearview mirror—

The trunk lid was slammed a moment later, and she came around the driver's side with a bundle of fabric in her arms. Roy put his hand over his eyes and sighed exaggeratedly as Hawkeye opened the door, poked him in the back, and draped his coat over his shoulders as he reluctantly sat up.

"That was unnecessary, First Lieutenant—" he began.

He could just see her smile through his fingers. "If I can't support my superior officer in the small things," she said in his ear, brusquely straightening the folds of the jacket, "How am I supposed to help with the big ones? Thank you, Master Sergeant," she added in normal tones to Fuery, whom she'd handed the dog to before getting out, "but you lost your privileges. I think Hayate will come in the car with me this time."

XXXX

The receptionist in the hotel lobby tried to conceal mild surprise when they came in—three men and the blonde woman carrying a small black and white dog, all soaked to the skin. She thought she was doing a good job of not wincing at the puddles of water they tracked across the lobby's hardwood floor on the way to the desk., too.

As she muddled about with the reservation list, cheerily accepting the other half of the military's payment, she couldn't help noticing the woman she'd talked to earlier. While directing the three men around, she was attempting to keep the black and white dog from getting out of her arms and onto the relatively clean floor; muddy pawprints across all her front and down her legs made the receptionist pity her a little. But there was a broad grin across her face, making it a bit less severe than the one she'd worn earlier.

"Goodnight, gentlemen, ma'am. Don't hesitate to call if you need anything," the receptionist said. "And I hope your stay is full of holiday cheer!"

The blonde woman and one of the men—the taller of the two dark-haired ones—snorted simultaneously.

XXXX

It could be the end, but it's not. Oh, don't worry. It's not the end yet. –malicious smirk-


	3. The One that Wears the Pants XPart OneX

Wellz… this update is only a few days later but it still feels late…. still need to catch up with the homework I've been neglecting during break… -nervous giggle- oh well… because fanfictions always come before careers and futures! Right??

-cricket sounds-

…Well, thanks for all your reviews and please continue the writing of them. as I shall with this fic.

Ahem.

Chapter Three: The One that Wears the Pants (Part One)

Of course they'd left him the one in the middle. And not only that—

Roy Mustang arrived dripping at the door of his hotel room, as centered as a room can be in a solid bloc of six—three on one side, and two on the other. 'One side' being Havoc, Breda, and Hawkeye's rooms on his right; and 'the other' being quickly filled by Falman and Fuery, leaving him to drip up the stairs after them, tucking a sodden official seal back into his privileged pocket, and fumble for the keys to the last available door. At the door of the room directly adjacent, Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye, who'd also stayed behind to validate the reservation, was doing the same thing.

She couldn't help noticing that this type of thing seemed to have been happening fairly often lately. Riza liked to believe that her subordinates were too mature for such childish things as conspiracies, especially over silly false assumptions…

After a while, she also had to admit to herself that this belief was total BS, laugh, and find her way back to reality. Mustang fitted his key into the lock and disappeared into the door without giving the First Lieutenant—or, comparably, anyone else—a second glance, muttering something about hot water. Riza followed his example, sans muttering, dripping her way into the two-room suite.

She set Black Hayate down in the bathroom and closed him in—at least none of the surfaces there were easily stainable. The military had pulled out all the stops for this one, she thought in mild annoyance, surveying with a sharpshooter's precision the territory that was already becoming familiar. Besides the perfunctory bed, lamp, closet, and nightstand with telephone, _this_ hotel room had a separate bathroom and shower.

Riza thought about it sarcastically and awaited its use with eager anticipation. If she unpacked first, then bathed the dog, she could go to bed as soon as she got out of the shower. It was only seven now, but going to bed early never hurt anyone, especially if, like Riza herself, they routinely woke up at five in the morning. Not counting days when she actually had _work_…

She could already hear the sound of water running through pipes in the room beside her, drowning out the distant pelt of the rain against her single window. Leaving her wet clothes hanging neatly on the side of the bathtub—if there was anything the lieutenant abhorred, especially in her private quarters, it was sloppiness—she was almost done arranging her belongings, wearing her undershirt and pajama pants, when the phone rang.

It was wonderful having a superior officer around to waive responsibility, Riza thought, folding her formal skirt over a hangar serenely. The ring died away, leaving only the sound of rain, Black Hayate scratching against the bathroom door, and water running through the pipes next door.

Wait…

She'd been trying not to think too hard about that _particular_ sound, but… Sighing inwardly, she picked up the phone on its second ring.

"Hello?"

"Hello." It was the receptionist again. There must be a mistake, Riza thought. There weren't any more military people to be late, were there? She said, "What is it?"

"Sorry to bother you, ma'am…but…can I talk to, um, the person in charge, please?"

"He's not available right now," Riza said immediately. As usual, in any domestic situation, the First Lieutenant was the one left wearing the pants.

In this case, the phrase was quite literal.

"I'm the next in command." she continued, a little worried about several things. "Is there some sort of situation?"

"Well, I guess. Thank God." The woman sounded relieved.

"What?" Hawkeye asked.

"Sorry, ma'am!" the receptionist squeaked. "I was just so glad that I didn't have to talk about this with a man."

"About what?" Riza was beginning to feel apprehensive about this whole process.

"The event that's going to take place the day after tomorrow. If the rain continues, we won't be able to hold the promotion outside like it was planned. We need the military's backup plan for the ceremony. Men are really no use for that sort of thing, as I'm sure you know."

Maybe she was a few sentences behind. "Backup plan?" Riza parroted.

"Yes—you know, what the military was going to do if this didn't work?"

"As far as I knew, the hotel was taking care of all that," Hawkeye said slowly, unsure of what to say.

"Oh. Really?" There was a sound of papers being shuffled; the water shut off next door. Riza concentrated discreetly on wracking her brains for a passing memory of what the military had told them about what was going on. It was inordinately difficult. The lieutenant didn't doubt her ability to concentrate; but the object of this concentration was often a hindrance.

"No," said the receptionist's voice on the phone, startling her, "The military agreed to provide the event schedule, though we're going to have to hire things like caterers and entertainment. I'm really sorry, ma'am. There might be a written agreement of some sort among the paperwork…"

"I'll go check," The blonde woman said in relief, leafing through the papers she'd stacked carefully on the nightstand, conveniently next to the phone. The water was running through the pipes again; Riza tried desperately not to meditate too much on the reason. Hopefully this would be over soon…

XXXX

"Are you sure it's not in there, Miss Hawkeye?"

"I looked at every paper a dozen times. I swear."

"Are those all the papers? Do you think some might've gotten lost?"

"No, I think that's all thirty of them." Riza couldn't help it; the irritation was beginning to filter into her voice. It had been twenty minutes, and no luck with the paperwork… The water that was running on and off in the next room wasn't helping her think, either.

The receptionist on the other line sighed heavily. "I'll have to call my boss and talk to her about it," she said. Riza recognized the sound of sheer loathing. "Or," the other woman continued, "You can just come up with a backup plan now, and I'll submit the idea."

"Well, when do they want it?"

There was a silence in which Riza could vaguely hear water splashing. She did her best to ignore it. The receptionist said, "I'm afraid it's bad news, Miss Hawkeye."

Things were just going that way today. "They want it tonight, don't they?"

XXXX

"Oh! What if we had the reception the day _after_ that, Miss Riza?"

"Do you really think the guests will come all the way back in weather like this...?"

"They could stay at the hotel…!"

Riza sighed. "No, Gloria, I think we can manage both parts in the same day. We're 'dogs of the military', you know. We know how to keep ourselves in line."

The receptionist, Gloria, whose name Riza had somehow acquired during their conversation, laughed. "Alright, then. I'd better get these submitted. My shift ends…uhm, that is, ended ten minutes ago! Shoot!"

"Okay." Riza said. "I'll inform my group." Maybe now she could finally take her shower…

"Don't forget the dress rehearsal tomorrow!" Gloria said in a squeaky voice, and hung up. The woman couldn't blame her. The receptionist seemed like a nice girl. Riza hoped she didn't get fired.

Walking into the bathroom to be greeted by an enthusiastic leap from Hayate and the sight of her stiff and mud stained uniform, Riza wondered what exactly was troubling her about the words _dress rehearsal_…

XXXX

Second Lieutenant Havoc picked the phone cautiously up from where it sat next to, but not on, the receiver, and pressed it to his ear. A look of shock spread across his face.

"Bradykins! I don't believe it!"

"Hey! You lost that bet!" Second Lieutenant Breda snarled from across the room, where he sat shivering slightly a T-shirt and his boxers. "What don't you believe?"

"They stopped talking!"

Breda hastily pretended that he wasn't trying to snatch his pants back from the pile of things Havoc had amassed over the course of the last poker game. Talk about a 'rainy day'... "Really?"

"I swear," Havoc said, hanging up the phone and pulling his pile of loot further towards his side of the floor, "I can't understand why they had to talk for an hour about something like _planning_."

"Well, what would you rather they talk…" Breda stopped in the middle of his sentence, narrowing his eyes at the blonde man across from him. "Didn't you just _get_ a new girlfriend, Havoc?"

Havoc sneered at his friend. "Not _yet_. Here, have your pants back. They won't look any good on me anyway."

XXXX

Well, as far as chapters go, that one's not the Gettysburg Address. (See, I _am _studying my history! See? ) Writing it at two in the morning yesterday probably has _something_ to do with it, but I fixed it up a little, so I don't think it's an utter waste of posting.

To make it up to you, be assured that there's more good, old-fashioned shôjo fluff coming in Part Two!

…And subsequent chapters. I'm not picky.

—AA-M


	4. The One that Wears the Pants XPart TwoX

Well, here I am again. And the promised fluff awaits.

Feast well, my children.

XXXX

Chapter Four: The One that Wears the Pants (Part Two)

Ahh…the pleasure of wasting military money.

Roy sat back against the side of the bathtub and closed his eyes. Having spent the last hour and a half out in the freezing rain, he felt perfectly justified in spending the same amount of time in hot shower water. If the military was going to force him to work for them during his vacation, he was going to spend as much of their money on hotel bills as he possibly could. Just _because_.

He brushed aside vague guilt from the recesses of his mind that said he should be looking for clues. There were no resources here, he reminded himself. Nothing to help him. Nobody was going suddenly pop up in his room saying, 'incidentally, I know who murdered you best friend!'

Besides, he thought, reaching lazily and remorsefully for the soap, Hughes would want him to enjoy an opportunity like this. Roy scrubbed the soap bar to lather in his hands. About now, the Commodore would probably laugh and start babbling on about his daughter's latest exploits. He would tell Roy to get more rest so he could spend his energy looking for a wife…which of course was, in his mind, the utmost goal a man could have in life.

Roy blinked sullenly. The phone had rung earlier, but the Colonel had ignored it. He wasn't going to let anything as silly as official business interrupt his own way of commemorating his friend. First Lieutenant Hawkeye had probably picked it up anyway. Knowing her, she would be too busy organizing to be in the shower just yet—though heaven knew she needed it. _Sorry, Hughes_, thought Roy, standing up at length and rinsing the soap out of his dark hair, _But I don't think that particular wish for me will be coming true anytime soon._

He was postponing leaving the warmth and humidity of the bathroom when something caught Roy's ear.

Actually, it less 'caught his ear' than thudded into his eardrums, making a slight vibration beneath his bare feet. Roy slipped on the bathtub floor, cursed, and barely regained his balance without falling. Someone was out there in his room.

He bet they weren't going to start piping up with murder secrets, either.

Turning on the sink to cover his actions, he pressed his ear to the bathroom wall, fumbling for clothes with one hand. He could hear slight footsteps, and, if he concentrated, a garbled voice… With his other hand, he reached underneath a pile of towels for a conveniently-stored handgun. It was useful being in the military. You _were_ the law; therefore, people didn't ask if you were following it.

The intruder seemed to be in the middle of the room about now, though the rain was hampering his hearing; its drumming seemed almost to be inside his head. Prepared to leap out, Roy waited quietly for the footsteps to come closer to the door of the bathroom. Was that a second set of quicker, lighter steps in the background, or was it just the rain and his paranoid brain?

The more distinct noise came into range and he didn't wait to find out. Roy burst through the door shoulder first, gun second, shouting furiously: "STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING AND PUT YOUR HANDS—"

His voice ran away.

He tried to get it back. He managed, "What—" took a breath, added, "—the HELL—" took another breath, and finished: "—are you doing in here, Lieutenant?"

XxXxXxX

Dress rehearsal? Riza thought.

_Dress_ rehearsal?

She was sitting on the side of the bathtub, holding out a towel to shelter most of the surfaces there from Hayate's energetic shaking, when it hit her like a dirty uniform falling stiffly on her head: _dress rehearsal_.

How can someone go to a dress rehearsal if they can't _dress_ right because their clothes are dirty?

Since she had her skirt to wear, she didn't have to worry about muddy pants; and Breda and Havoc, unless they'd decided to go on a spontaneous hike in the rain between her departure earlier and her arrival with the rest of the group, wouldn't have to worry at all. But Mustang, Falman, and Fuery all needed their rain-soaked, dirty uniforms cleaned as well. Well…they could survive without uniforms tomorrow if it took that long to clean them; and _if_ it took that long, she needed to get it started _now_, so they would be ready by the day after tomorrow. The real event.

And for that, she had a _feeling_ that hotel laundry wasn't going to cut it.

Ten minutes later, she was ready to go, complete with her now-empty suitcase to collect clothes. Black Hayate, who'd only been recently washed himself, looked up brightly at the prospect of going out. "Alright," Riza told him. "You can come with me down the hall at least. But no more driving in the car for you. Heel!"

She knocked on Fuery's door first, the one at the end of their block of rooms. No one answered. She knocked several more times—she could ask Falman where he was—and moved one. However, Falman wasn't answering his door, either. Next door—but that lazy idiot Mustang was probably still in the shower. Riza didn't trust herself to think about what would happen if she walked in at some random time and—

_Well then_. On to Breda's room.

It was nearly eight twenty now, the hall clock informed her. Who knew how late the dry cleaners were open? Black Hayate trailed dutifully behind her as she strode down the hall, past her room, and knocked soundly on the door of the room to its left.

Second Lieutenant Breda opened the door with a mug of coffee in his hand and began to speak.

"Breda," Riza said over him, "Do you know where—"

She stopped as her eyes fell upon the other three men sitting in a lopsided circle on the floor of the room, surrounding a halfway-distributed deck of cards. "Hey, First Lieutenant," came a jumble of male voices. "Care to join the game?" "Has Mustang gotten his sorry ass out of the shower yet?"

"Hello, _no_, and I'm afraid to say _no_," Riza said, a little preoccupied. Time was ticking, after all. She searched around for her target and spotted the unsuspecting face of Kain Fuery.

"Master Sergeant?"

"Yes, Sir?"

"Please take off your pants."

Four men gave her looks of sheer horror.

"M-me S-sir?" Fuery squeaked, at the same time that Breda made a choking noise into his coffee, Falman stuttered something incomprehensible, and Havoc said curiously, "That's funny, First Lieutenant. I always thought you had a thing for—ah, excuse me, is something wrong?"

Riza threw a scathing glance at the blonde man. That was uncalled for. "There's a dress rehearsal tomorrow at ten—" She began, through her teeth.

"For what?" "Sir, what does that have to do with—?"

"_Ahem_," the woman coughed. The room fell silent.

"As I was _saying_, for the rehearsal, the clothes Falman and Fuery were wearing today while chasing my dog—whom the Master Sergeant let _escape_—need to be cleaned. Preferably before the dry cleaners close for the night, because we have to wear them the day after tomorrow, when we make our presentation, and I don't know how long it will take to clean them."

Falman and Fuery scurried off to gather and/or remove all soiled articles of their clothing in their own separate rooms, amid a hail of low chuckles. Riza didn't know why it was so amusing—she'd only asked the Master Sergeant to—well, okay. She permitted herself a terse smile. It was best not to let her subordinates think that she'd sunk to their level…

"You really scared me there for a second, First Lieutenant," Breda said. "Who knew?"

Riza felt her smile cracking.

"Honestly. I don't know what we'd do without you here to make sure everyone's wearing the right pants," Havoc added flatly.

She excused herself and her full suitcase before they could see her burst out laughing.

XXXX

And even after collecting the laundry from both Falman and Fuery, Mustang was apparently still in the shower.

Riza paced back and forth in front of his door for a tense minute, feeling time slipping away with every second. She knocked in case he could hear. She knocked again. Obviously he couldn't.

She wondered whether or not the door in between their rooms was locked.

That was nonsense, Riza thought, opening her door, lugging the suitcase over to the bed and setting it down. Utter nonsense, she told herself, peering at the door as Black Hayate ticked across the floor and whined at her.

She tried the handle. This really _was_ nonsense.

It opened.

"Don't worry, boy," she said to Hayate, who sniffed with dislike at the edge of the unfamiliar—not to mention messy—territory. "All we need to do is knock on the bathroom door and ask him for his dirty clothes."

Right?

XxXxXxX

"Sir," said First Lieutenant Hawkeye, relatively calmly in light of the fact that she was primarily speaking to the barrel of a revolver, "Please put the gun down. I can explain."

Roy let his hand fall to his side, suddenly quite painfully aware of the water dripping insistently down his back and onto his bare chest from his wet hair. "You should know better, Lieutenant," he said roughly, "than to come into my room without knocking. I could've shot you." No, he didn't feel the _least_ bit foolish for bursting out of the bathroom half-naked and waving a gun around in his own hotel room. It was perfectly necessary for a person of his lifestyle. Perfectly normal.

"I _did_ knock, Sir," Riza pointed out.

"You know what I mean," Colonel Mustang said, frowning at her and tossing the gun onto the bed to his left, her right. "Just tell me what you think you're doing here."

"Well, Sir," Riza began stiffly. She focused on looking him straight in the eye. The eye, she thought. Not the water slowly tracing his jaw and the torsion in his neck; not the way his muscles rippled as he swiveled almost imperceptibly to glare at her; not the towel he was clutching with one clenched fist rather haphazardly around his thighs… The eyes. That was what she would look at.

"Lieutenant," Roy said, searching her level face for a trace of remorse, or, worse, purpose. "I'm _waiting_." She looked a bit off-color. Maybe it had something to do with running around in the rain earlier. Her hair was dry but bedraggled in that clip she always wore, but she'd changed out of her uniform into some nondescript black pants and an equally nondescript white t-shirt. Well, the shirt _itself_ was nondescript, anyway—

"Well, Sir," Hawkeye said again, blinking and reaching down to pet the black-and-white dog that was sniffing its way through the luggage he'd tossed haphazardly across the floor, "I was collecting laundry."

"What the hell for?" The Colonel asked. In this situation, it could almost be regarded as polite.

"The ceremony the military is holding here is the day after tomorrow, and everyone's uniforms need to be professionally cleaned for—"

He cut her off. "Alright, Lieutenant, I got it. What I'm confused about is why _now_? Couldn't it have waited until tomorrow—" That stubborn determination in her eye again prompted him to hastily add "Or at least after I was out of the shower?"

"We need them for the dress rehearsal tomorrow," Riza explained, seizing her chance and trying to hold onto it. "And if they're not done by then, they'll need to be turned in _now_ so that they're at least clean for the actual ceremony."

Mustang stared at her with a distinct lack of comprehension. Riza sighed and got ready to explain again. This wasn't getting any easier.

"So what was the noise?"

Before Riza could answer, Black Hayate gave a startled little yip as a suitcase he had been vigorously sniffing tipped over. Thump. The Lieutenant pointed apologetically and matter-of-factly at her dog. "That's the second one."

"Damn dog," Mustang said; she had to admit that it wasn't without reason. The expression on his face was halfway between anger and incredulity as he stared at her a moment longer; then the Colonel turned and shuffled drippily toward the window, holding his towel and peering out through the curtains. "If you must, the clothes are on the bathroom floor," he said. "Is it still raining?"

"Yes, Sir." Riza moved into the bathroom and began searching for the dirty uniform. It was useful to have something to concentrate on. "Thank you, Sir." She was tempted to add, _for graciously allowing me to take your laundry_, but decided it could be construed as sarcastic. Something she would _never_ want to happen… "I'll just get going, then. I don't know how late the dry cleaners are open." Or even where one _was_. This whole pants thing was turning out to be more difficult than she'd initially thought. As did most things concerning the military, she thought.

"Just a moment, Lieutenant." Mustang's voice came from the other room.

She came out of the bathroom, arms piled with the unforgiving cloth of his damp and muddy uniform. Thank God for women like Hawkeye, Roy found himself thinking. The world needed more of them. Not only could they keep a straight face around lewd, normally-clothed men with guns, but they took care of your laundry as well. Finding what he was rummaging around in his luggage for, he hiked up his towel and tossed it across the room to her.

"Take this one to be cleaned too," he told her.

It was a heavy coat, one of his own. He hadn't worn it in a long time, but what with the rain, he'd thought to bring it along just in case. Roy watched with satisfaction the mildly concealed surprise on her face as it slid off her head, where it had landed, and was captured, trailing down almost to the floor, by her arms.

Hawkeye peered down at the material. "It doesn't look like it needs to be washed," she observed.

"It will be after you wear it all the way out to the nearest dry-cleaners. Yes, Lieutenant," he added as she gave him another one of her inscrutable _looks_, "That's an order. Now get going."

Riza tried to be annoyed and failed miserably. Digging her hand out from the bottom of the pile of clothes as she walked out of the room with Hayate at her heels, she clapped it to her forehead in a salute.

"Yes, Sir," she said.

XXXX

And this was going to be the other _half_ of chapter four. (Not only that, but I wanted to add another segment to it. Guess I'll have to cover it later.) So much for my five-chapter theory, huh?

I guess this one turned out to be a little less light than the first three, what with all Roy's speculation on Hughes's death and all. It's the characters. Not me. They do all the really hard work around here! They make the story happen!

It's their fault if I make it serious…ish…. Not mine!!

Anyway, I think I had a few good lines in there. Plus the other officers—lovely comic relief. I do want to do some more with them later, something more serious…or, at least, umm, more… --cant think of a word to describe it-- Well, definitely not serious.

I've just decided that it's too late for me to be writing this. Anywho, please review!

—AA-M


	5. The Time that Tells

Well, everyone, school started again. Thus the lack of updates. Grr.

I struggled for a while over whether to write this as a long chapter or what, but I can't figure out enough…uh, _stuff_ to make an extension to this particular chapter.

Oh well. I guess I'll just wing it. But if you have any ideas, please, share them! i'm serious! fire away!

Gun points --Not literally!--

wow, the title is all T's.

XXXX

Chapter Five: The Time That Tells

Riza was finding her willpower lacking again.

But then again, it _was_ awfully late; to be exact—but NO! She _wasn't_ looking at the clock. If anyone asked her why she'd taken so long at the dry cleaners, she could now claim that she really hadn't known that it was that late. Not even when the dress shop—that is, _dry cleaners_—politely asked her to leave because well, the shop was closing, and had been closing for the past two hours, and well, we could even drive you home if you don't want to go out in the rain…

Riza had declined just as politely and left fifteen minutes later. When she decided to buy something, of course, they decided to close that much later.

She was wondering whether it was too late for her brain to be functioning as she fumbled for keys in the darkened hotel room, dripping slightly and wishing in vain for a light. The hotel's lamps were extinguished at eleven…which made it…

NO. She was _not _looking at the clock. Riza felt along the edge of her keys in the dark; one was for the hallway door, since the front door was left open all night; the other was her room key. It shouldn't take so long to figure this out…

The door next to hers creaked, and she jumped.

Roy Mustang was peering out of his doorway, an indisitinct and lumpy form in a bundle of blanket. She thought he was scowling.

"Do you know what time it is, Lieutenant?"

"No, sir," Riza said to his growl. "It's too dark to see the clock, sir." She wondered furiously why she hadn't realized this earlier. "I wasn't out shopping, sir, if that's what you were thinking." She shuffled the canvas bag in her hand hastily to the other side of her body. Hopefully he wouldn't see it in the gloom.

There was a narrowed-eyes silence from the other door, and what sounded like a sigh. "Lieutenant, it's too late for you. Go to bed."

"Goodnight to you, too, sir," Hawkeye said.

Roy blearily wondered, as the wall rattled, why the normally-placative First Lieutenant had closed the door so _hard_.

He shambled back into his own darkened room, stifling a yawn. As long as _that_ was settled, he could finally get some sleep. After all, no one knew what could happen to a woman alone at night at the dry cleaners. Someone had to pick up the phone if, say, she caught another plucky mass murderer.

As if anyone but the late Barry the Chopper would think twice about assaulting _her_…

Taking his own advice seemed a good idea at the moment. Roy shut up the utter idiocy of his sleep-deprived inner thoughts and rolled into bed.

In the room next door, Riza set her bag of—not 'shopping', she hadn't been shopping—at the foot of the bed, yawning. The colonel could be such an ass sometimes. This pleasantly all-encompassing thought tided her over for the ten minutes it took her to get changed and ready for bed, then find the mattress and fall into it in bliss.

Then she thought, half-asleep already, _So what reason does HE have to be up this late?_

XXXX

so yea. i wrote this chapter really late, too, so it sort of fits. right? and since i MYSELF am now sleep-deprived because of my stupid science project (again, school!) review and i'll feel guilty enough to continue. your ideas as to how our poor characters pass the next day would be really appreciated!! i might actually use them! worse, i might be inspired!

--AA-M


	6. Bright and Early XPart OneX

Uhm… yeah. School really sucks. I apologize for the lack of updates and thank everybody who's sticking with me!! Thanks for the ideas; i'll feel guilty if i don't use them in some way, so i'll try to work them in slightly...ish.

Apart from the gloomy & boring subject of school, I also apologize for the short chapter. Like I said in the first A/N, I know where I'm going, but not how to get there. I figure, if I—well, Riza and I —can get through this day, I'll be much better because I know approximately what's going to happen. Mwahaha. XD

Uh…anyway….

I forgot this before, so this counts for all previous and future chapters—

Disclaimer: For heaven's sake, I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist. If I did….well, _this_ would happen. And there would probably be annoyingly long A/Ns in the front too. Right!

Chapter Six: Bright and Early (Part I)

XXXX

Morning came bright and early for Riza Hawkeye. It would have been bright, at least, if the sun had been up; or perhaps not even then, given the grey clouds obscuring the sky when she shambled over to the window to check if it had stopped raining yet. It hadn't.

Black Hayate's constant whining had woken her; and Riza couldn't remember the last time she'd woken up later than four-thirty and gone back to bed again. It just wasn't _right._ With the rain drumming softly against the window, she began to get dressed.

The dog looked at her with expectant eyes.

"What are _you_ so happy about?" Riza grumbled. She also couldn't remember a vacation week when she'd gone to bed later than ten. So much for routine. Still, she bent to stroke Hayate's furry back before shuffling her way to the bathroom for a shower.

And half and hour later, of course, the dog needed to be walked…

XXXX

"She disappeared again, didn't she?"

No one needed to ask who he was talking about. "Hayate's gone too," Fuery told Roy Mustang helpfully, remorsefully chewing a forkful of food in the hotel's dining room. The five men were crammed around a shiny varnished wooden table, eating breakfast.

Falman, to Roy's right, nodded into his orange juice. "The first lieutenant always does seem to find ways to keep busy."

Havoc said, "I bet her boyfriend lives around here."

Roy choked on a large mouthful of water.

The men laughed, but Second Lieutenant Breda shook his head. "Nah. The colonel keeps her way too busy for that."

Almost over, Roy's choking fit suddenly turned into a bout of coughing.

"You're a cruel man, Mustang," Havoc agreed, over the noise of Roy hacking and coughing. "None of your subordinates have girlfriends."

Fuery kept his eyes on his toast. "Isn't that the fault of the 'subordinates'?" he asked, at the same time that Falman said, "I don't think the First Lieutenant _wants_ a girlfriend."

The laughter was by now attracting a few stares from other early risers in the dining room. Roy set his water glass down before it reached his lips, scowling. Maybe _they_ were all morning people, but then again, _they_ hadn't been up until midnight.

Fuery finished breakfast first, so Roy sent him to ask the receptionist whether she'd seen Lieutenant Hawkeye leave. This cheered him up a little—he just loved being an officer. It allowed him to fully exercise his well-founded paranoia. He sat back against his chair and tried to think of ways he could spend more military money.

"So what is this thing we're doing anyway, Colonel?"

"How should I know?" Room service. That was it. Roy smiled contentedly and let Falman field Havoc's question as best he could: "Some sort of assembly. Like the one's they've been having at central lately—we're supposed to read messages from the Führer, I think. They're trying to calm things down after all the violence lately."

"And no doubt trying to win back all the greedy aristocrats," Breda intoned, casting a glance across the elaborately furnished dining room. If he cared to think about it, Roy could understand Breda's logic. There were better suites in this particular hotel than the ones the military group was in; to be frank, they'd gotten what was cheapest. Given the surroundings, this wasn't at all bad; but it was something Roy could complain about, which he felt a strange need for at the moment. Breda was continuing.

"And speaking of _wealth_, Havoc, remember what you bet me about—"

Second Lieutenant Havoc jumped up from his seat. "Fuery _sure_ is taking a long time out there!" He exclaimed. "I think I'll go check on him!" Smoothing his hair back with one hand, he bolted from the room. The overbalanced chair toppled over a moment later, clattering against the wooden floor.

Breda rolled his eyes and peered over at his friend's half-empty plate. "Mmm. Sausage."

XXXX

The note said, _Went to check on clothes & walk dog. Will be back by noon for dress rehearsal in hotel ballroom—ask Gloria for details._ It was written and signed in Lieutenant Hawkeye's familiar, neat hand, with her modest signature at the bottom. Roy looked at it with groundless annoyance.

"Who's Gloria?" he asked.

The brunette receptionist—the same one who'd ushered them in last night—raised her hand with a little titter of laughter; Havoc and Fuery both pointed to her at the same time. It'd taken a few minutes to pry the two men away from the counter long enough to remind them of the reason Roy had sent Fuery to talk to her in the first place. Conceivably, this should've been what was bothering him; it wasn't.

Roy scrutinized the note again and frowned. What was he expecting, a letter?

"So anyway, when I turned around—" Havoc started, before Roy cut him off.

"Well, _Gloria_," he said, "What's this about _details_?"

The brunette turned to look at him from talking to Fuery. "Well, Sir, you're supposed to be at the ballroom at noon with your dress clothes on. Miss Hawkeye said she would be back by then, and—Sir, are you alright?"

"Do I look like I'm not?"

"You just have a weird expression on your face, Sir—if you mind me saying it—"

"Oh, he doesn't mind," Havoc said to Gloria. "He looks like that all the time."

Roy rearranged his facial features as best he could. It was strange being called Sir by someone who wasn't in a military uniform. He spent so much of his time around them; he should know. That was all. The fact that it was a woman didn't have anything to do with it. There were lots of women in the military. Having made up his mind not to be annoyed again, Roy looked up from the note to discover that his mental absence had been taken advantage of.

"Yes, I guess you could say we're not on break together very often," Fuery was saying—

"But what I was saying was—" Havoc insisted—

"Is it always like this in the military?" Gloria asked Fuery—

Roy slammed his hand down onto the table, crumpling the note he still held in his fingers. The noise of his subordinates and the recpetionist talking suddenly ceased, a silence in which he could vaguely hear rain pattering on the front windows.

Now what had he been trying to say…?

"Did the First—ah, _Miss Hawkeye_ say anything else?"

XXXX

_Don't come looking for me_. Don't come looking for me?! Of all the things he would never, _never_ do at this moment, it was go out in the rain looking for Riza Hawkeye. It was stupid—there was no way to know where she was going, and furthermore, there was no way to know when or how she was coming back, and thirdly…

"Stop pacing, Colonel," Havoc said to Roy, pulling on his cigarette, seated on the floor of the corridor with his back to the wall. "You're making me dizzy."

"I'm an officer," Roy snorted. "Why should I have to put up with this garbage? I should be having my vacation on a sunny beach somewhere surrounded by women in bikinis." As none of his subordinates argued with this—they probably agreed with the sentiment—he continued pacing up and down the hall outside the ballroom, boots tapping against the wooden floor. Earlier in the morning, Gloria had smiled at him as she relayed the rest of Hawkeye's message: 'She said, _Don't come looking for me._'

As if!

"It's 11:34, Sir," Falman observed.

Roy's frown deepened. There was nothing to get ready; all they could do was wait for Hawkeye to show up with the uniforms and the dog. And, in Breda and Havoc's case, bet on anything in sight.

"Ten that Hawkeye comes back at exactly 12:00."

"Fifteen that the Colonel keeps pacing until then."

"Twenty," Roy snarled, "That several subordinates of mine will be burned to a crisp _very_, _very_ soon."

"I fold," Havoc said, a broad grin spreading across his face.

Roy resumed pacing, snorting under his breath. Maybe the reason he was annoyed was because there was _absolutely no reason to be annoyed_! He followed his thought process back and forth across the hall—up and down, like a pendulum. Surely she wasn't taking this long on _purpose_. Ridiculous. Hawkeye wasn't like that—but then again, this whole thought process was ridiculous; he should give it up now… And the minutes slipped by…

"I suppose…" Roy said, giving in to himself at 11:57, "That we should go inside now."

"Good idea, Sir."

Hawkeye dripped her way sedately past him and slipped through the ballroom door before any of the men had a chance to respond.

"Dammit," Roy said. "That's it. Something has got to be done."

XXXX

A/N Blargh. Better chapter next time!!

And since it was meant to be the other half of this one, it's already halfway ( –sorta– –a little– ) done, so it shouldn't be as hard to finish or long to update! Right?


	7. Bright and Early XPart TwoX

A/N So here's the plan: finish my essay, draw my fanart, write this chapter, and ROYAI UNTIL MY BRAINS BUST!!!

Has anyone else ever used Royai as a verb?

If it wasn't one before, it is now!

Chapter Seven: Bright and Early (Part II)

XXXX

And now it was Riza's turn to be annoyed, watching the rain beat down on the window of a little diner several blocks from the hotel.

The dress rehearsal—not that it could be a real _dress_ rehearsal without their uniforms—passed as an eternity of military-manufactured words which Riza failed utterly to be interested in. She dripped all over the floor through the hourlong production, consciously ignoring dagger-filled glances from the hotel's cleaning staff. Maybe it was time to buy an umbrella. Maybe it was time to grow a spine and resist the puppy-eyes of an insistent, whining dog wanting to be walked at five o'clock in the morning.

As soon as the head of ceremonies—a severe-lipped woman with a sharp bark of a voice and a veritable _scythe_ of a glare—announced that they had _finally_ perfected the sequence in which they were to enter, the Colonel had pounded out into the hall, where he'd coughed and snapped something about 'lunch' which implied immediate obedience. Then he'd stomped off to the cars, taking fastidious care that the group was following, and guided them here, where Riza had ended up sandwiched between Breda and the wall, with two men in between her and any possible leg room.

Across from her, Mustang was perusing the menu, the happy little smile on his face a sudden contrast, like a glimpse of the sun in this weather might be. He hadn't even asked about the dry cleaning, Riza thought. She wondered if he even remembered.

"The clothes weren't done, Sir," she announced with her customary soft bluntness. "The dry cleaners said that they would be ready by tomorrow, though."

Roy didn't look up from the menu. "That's good," he said easily. He was too lazy to examine the source of the happy vindictiveness that had settled over him like a cloak, instead preferring to stretch his tight temper a little in its luxury. No one, not even he, needed to know its source. It was enough that it was there.

"Thank you, Sir," Hawkeye said, sharply. Roy looked up then, but her face was suddenly buried in the menu. His happy feeling contracted a little. The rain pounded on the window, not quite drowing out the sounds of his other subordinates discussing the properties of milk…

"Hey," Havoc was saying, "Doesn't the Fullmetal kid hate milk or something?"

"Yep. Alphonse told me about it once..." Fuery smiled slightly. "They used to battle to make him drink it when he was in the hospital. Said it would make him taller."

Riza peered over the top of the unfolded paper menu at Mustang.

The other men burst into laughter. "That little shrimp probably murdered someone," Breda said, scratching his head.

"If he were here right now…" Havoc started.

At that moment the Colonel interjected: "That's enough, Havoc. I'm going to be _eating _soon."

"Geez, Sir, what's stuck up your—"

"I'm an officer!" Roy erupted, as though the annoyance that had been festering in his chest all morning had to do with this. "I'm trying to enjoy my vacation and I WON'T let Fullmetal ruin it!"

"That's pathetic! " Havoc, of course, immediately retaliated. Nothing like a good argument to clear the mind, Roy thought happily—err, _angrily_—

Riza squashed herself into the corner of the booth and tried to ignore them, once again failing in her mental effort. She endured only about thirty seconds, fighting amusement—well, _honestly_—and embarassment, since the other customers were starting to stare at the commotion. Embarrasment won, and she shoved her way into a standing position and reached into her jacket pocket.

Click.

Roy and Havoc looked up from their shouting match automatically at the sound of a pistol being cocked precariously close their heads. "Colonel, Second Lieutenant, please calm down," First Lieutenant Hawkeye said frostily. "You're making a scene."

"Um, excuse me," mumbled a voice from the side of the table, where an ungainly young man wearing a red uniform was peering at the three of them from behind a tray of drinks. "Have you decided yet?"

Riza smiled. "Number three, thank you," she recited, putting her gun back into her pocket.

The waiter stared, gulped, and asked Mustang, in a quavery voice, what his order was. "What?" The colonel said; his voice choked off, and he coughed and looked at the menu. "Ri-ight."

"I'll come back to you, sir," squeaked the waiter, and took the other men's orders while Mustang gulped water. Riza watched him with an unexpected discontent—usually she felt quite justified mopping up the men's little escapades with her gun. She sat back down again and listened quietly to the hum of normal conversation, adding her own opinion when she felt like it—mostly just listening, like she always did, fading into the background.

She realized with a shock, just as their food was being passed out, that this was annoying her too.

The Colonel was obviously in a better mood by the time lunch was halfway over, because in between bites of bleeding steak sandwich, he coughed slightly and said, "Hmm. I just remembered my dream."

"Your dream, Sir?" Riza asked, when the rest of his subordinates gave him their usual funny looks. Men, she thought again. At least some of them appeared to have feelings once in a while—though looks were deceptive. The Colonel continued.

"I was in these suburbs," he said pensively. "Everything was all...cheerful."

"Was it sunny?" Fuery asked, almost rapturously. Riza knew the feeling. Imagining the sun was difficult at the moment.

"Probably the only reason he remembers it at all," Breda grumbled.

"Well, I think it was a town or something," Mustang said. He swallowed another bite of sandwich and coughed matter-of-factly. "My old girlfriend was there."

Riza nodded into her water glass in agreement. It was really raining hard outside—the droplets spattered dully against the glass that spread between the diner's open red curtains. There was a little stain on the side of one, she saw now, where the fabric crunched together in a fold. She wondered absently how the dry cleaning was doing.

Breda twitched a little. "Which one, Colonel? One of the weeklong ones, or the one-night stands?" he asked with a grimace of long-suffering.

Mustang's face warped. He scratched his head. "This one was important," he said intently, brandishing his half-eaten sandwich. "I think her name was…uhh…it started with an I…or maybe an A…anyway, she had long, light brown hair—it was almost red."

The other men exchanged glances; Riza saw them out of the corner of her eye as she was picking delicately at her salad. She'd never noticed all the different variations that lettuce had in it. "What were you doing that made it so interesting, Sir?" she heard Falman ask briskly.

"That was it, really. I think I was protecting a house or something like that. Dunno why I remembered it now." Roy said, giving a little shrug-eyeroll at the ridiculousness. He stuffed the rest of his sandwich in his mouth. Not Iorra…Not Ashley… Aliena. That had been her name…

Havoc, Breda, Falman, and Fuery watched as Mustang trailed off and stared vacantly at Hawkeye, who was staring vacantly at the lettuce she neatly and mechanically shoveled into her mouth. Sighing in collective resignation, the group subsided back into its normal mode of entertainment.

"Whaddya bet she uses up all her ammo by the end of the week?"

"…Firing at _him_? Let's make it twenty."

"Not the First Lieutenant. I don't think she'll use any. Wastes bullets, you know?"

"Twenty-five that Roy gets her to shoot at least _once._"

"At this rate, it _does_ seem likely," Falman admitted, setting down his fork.

"Hey, Havoc, didn't you bet Breda something about us getting sick chasing the dog?" Fuery asked.

"Uh…I think so. Why?"

The Master Sergeant smiled. "Oh, no reason. But I wouldn't forget about it if I were you."

"Yeah, yeah." Havoc snorted as the waiter came by to collect their empty plates; First Liuetenant Hawkeye looked up almost automatically to receive the bill, squeezing past him on her way to the restaurant's front desk. "Aw, geez, no smoking?" Havoc added, seeing the sign hanging over their heads. "Someone wake the Colonel up so we can get outta here."

Mustang was still sitting at the table, washed in greyish half-light from the window, by the time all the other men had gotten up and shrugged on coats over their ordinary, off-duty clothes. Hawkeye came back at about the same time.

"Colonel," she said briskly to his still-vacant stare, "How long are you going to continue examining the table?"

He looked up at her, face briefly registering confusion before subsiding into its usual apathetically annoyed expression. "I wouldn't ask," she added flatly, "But we're ready to leave."

Roy stood up and yawned, stretching elaborately. "It's vacation!" he moaned, by way of explanation. "You'd think they'd let us get a little more sleep!" He'd almost dozed off there. After all, he'd stayed up until one last night.

"Can someone get the check?" he asked, pushing through the group of his subordinates toward the diner's door.

"I billed it to the military, Sir," the First Lieutenant said, following, her voice muffled by the sudden loudness of the pounding rain as he opened the door. The downpour had slackened since morning, but water droplets were still falling steadily from the pewter-cast sky.

"Thank you, Lieutenant." Hot damn. The woman could practically read his mind. But he'd known that forever…

"You're welcome. Sir." Finished, Hawkeye slipped archly past him in the doorway at a swift walk, deftly avoiding the puddles on the cold sidewalk, and let herself quite gently into the driver's side of the car.

Roy scratched his head, lingering in the relative safety of the doorway a moment longer. He'd been feeling better now than earlier in the morning; but maybe…

"Lieutenant Havoc," Roy said to the blonde man, who was in the process of stepping out the door himself, "Do you think the First Lieutenant is acting…out of sorts?"

Havoc stopped walking a few feet from Roy. His newly lit cigarette, which he was sheltering from the rain with one hand, nearly dropped from his mouth as he started to laugh.

"What's so _funny_, Second Lieutenant?" He was an officer, Roy told himself for only the third or fourth time today, starting out after his subordinate. He shouldn't have to deal with this.

The taller man snorted, moving again; when Roy caught him up, he was facing the other way, cigarette twitching between his fingers.

"Second Lieutenant," Roy repeated, quietly, reaching into a pocket. Now where had he put his gloves…?

Havoc shoved the cigarette back in his mouth. "He-ey, no offense, Colonel. I mean—well, even _I_ know not to talk to women about my ex-girlfriends, Sir!"

XXXX

Riza kept her eyes straight on the road and her expression lightly on her face during the drive back to the hotel, even if it meant ignoring the fact that Colonel Mustang kept peering at her surreptitiously around his sleeve with the pretense of looking at the scenery, which was all conveniently concealed by sheeting rain. It was nearly three o'clock by the time they arrived, dashing up the stairs into the dry, warm dullness of the hotel's lobby, where Gloria waved to them. A male receptionist was manning the front desk; the brunette girl was on her hands and knees, scrubbing the floor near the stairs.

"Wow, Gloria," Fuery said as the group approached. "What did you do to your boss this time?"

"Oh, nothing much," she said, gritting her teeth over the sponge. "Someone had a nosebleed…"

"This is _your_ fault?" Havoc asked, leaning back against the banister.

"No, but I suppose she thinks so," Gloria said.

"Talk about bitchy!" "Well, I can see _one_ reason—"

"Only if the person was like certain _men_ I know," Riza cut in, glancing at the two languishing around the banister. Gloria giggled; Falman and Breda rolled their eyes in uniform; Havoc waved his hand in the air at Riza and Fuery grimaced, abashed. Mustang opened his mouth to speak, but coughed into his elbow instead—

"I have work to do—I'm going upstairs," Riza said, before anyone had a chance to convince her otherwise. Well, she _was_ going upstairs, she reasoned, sweeping up the aforementioned steps without a backward glance. Besides, by many people, reading a whole novel in one sitting _was_ considered work. This was supposed to be a vacation, so she'd remembered to pack a few books to entertain herself if she could ever find an hour or so to spare.

And she'd taken pains to ensure that thinking need not be involved.

Several steps below already, she only barely comprehended that Mustang's voice was directed toward her: "First Lieutenant—"

Riza turned and regarded him with as much apathy as she could muster. She didn't want to talk to the Colonel right now; all she wanted to do was read enough brain-draining pulpy fluff to kill a teenage girl until she could sort out her own inconsistencies. "Yes, sir?"

The dark-haired man at the base of the stairs coughed. "Don't kill yourself. You went to sleep late enough last night—I don't suggest you make it a weeklong affair."

"It's only three fifteen, Sir," Riza said calmly, ignoring a poke from her conscience. "There's plenty of time for _all_ of us to do what we need to before bed."

An unwarranted smile cracked his lips. "So one would assume," Roy said, in certainty that, no matter what she said, she was about to disappear again. He swallowed the annoying itch in his throat. "But keep it it mind, Lieutenant. Tomorrow comes…'bright and early', as they say. Don't forget."

"Do you really think you need to remind me?"

She went upstairs.

XXXX

A/N—

Okay, so I've been writing this about 3 sentences at a time, with what time I can scrape from homework, various things I do, and swim practice/meets. Therefore, I apologize for its dischord….at least, _I_ think it's dischord… and the lameness. Okay, you're free to judge that for yourself, but suffice to say that I would like a little more consistency.

Feel loved... I stayed up late enough doing homework to have to get up in five hours, so i just had to finish this. I thought, what the heck? what's a few less minutes of sleep??? I feel Riza's pain at the moment…

I have a feeling I'm ranting, so I'll stop. Too bad I didn't get to go on my Royai rampage; I might have stopped drawing so many fanarts…..XD yep. Too-o-o late for me.

Well, until next chapter then! —AA-M


	8. Necessary

A/N THANK GOODNESS FOR SPRING BREAK!!!

I was totally wiped out from a week of sleep-swim-sleep(in-class)-swim-HW-sleep. For the first time in my life, my body is actually being conditioned to its sport…but I was just so stressed out that I got this fever and—guess what?—had to skip school the last Friday before break. yep. anyway, what with studying for the AP exam and doing a bunch of annoying history HW, I should be able to fit in a couple more chapters and maybe even do some relaxing! (hahaha yea riiight….) I'm writing this one on a USB, so it can go anywhere with me, even the school library… 

So there's my blurb about my life, aka, why I'm not updating so much. Forward ho!

Chapter Eight: Necessary

XXXX

Once again, it was dark when First Lieutenant Hawkeye woke up; but this time, it wasn't Black Hayate's fault. She felt like death.

"Don't worry," coughed the Colonel from the doorway, hunched in a comforter and looming bulkily in the light from the bathroom, "You don't look as bad as I feel."

Riza put this down to sheer delirium on his part and didn't answer, continuing to rummage around in her bag for cough medicine.

If she'd started reading at three yesterday, she would've had enough time to finish; but life didn't work that way. First there was Gloria, finished with the floor and her shift, who knocked on her room door to announce that they needed some last-minute refinement of the military's statements, which had come in that morning, and could she maybe speak to the men about it too? With Riza's help, since she _obviously_ knew how to handle this particular bunch well.

The blonde woman didn't know about that statement, but she could pretend well enough; but the 'briefing' had taken a few hours longer than it should've, encompassing dinner and the following fifteen minutes of Gloria's shift. The brunette really needed to stop annoying her boss so much, Riza decided. It might lessen the woman's apparent loathing of her.

So there went seven o'clock, and the necessary shower, and organizing all the things she'd come back too late to organize yesterday, and…by that time she'd _really_ wanted to escape from reality… Though there had probably been no need to finish the entire book in one sitting.

_Now what was I looking for?_ Riza asked herself, opening her eyes blearily and discovering that she was leaning on the bathroom counter, her nose among the various bottles and packages in her first-aid kid, which went everywhere with her when she traveled.

The colonel hacked prolongedly from the other side of the room. _Oh, right._ He'd woken her up by coughing, and proceeded to finalize the waking by knocking on her door demanding medicine. A little belatedly, she noted the inflection of words among the rasps coming from Mustang's throat.

"Did you say something, Sir?"

Coughs. "I said, these arrays are very artistic, but if she survived, the woman would probably turn into a cow."

What on earth was he talking—

…OH.

There was a sort of strangled noise from the bathroom. Roy shook his head at the cover of the book on the table by the door, which depicted a cunningly-arranged but clearly naked woman's body, covered in alchemy circles with a silver pocket-watch chain girding her hips. A masculine-looking hand was reaching from across the picture to rest on her thigh.

Unwilling to get any closer to the mildly disturbing thing than necessary, Roy peered at the title and managed to muster a smile as Hawkeye came out of the bathroom in her sleeveless top and flannel pajama pants, blinking at the label on a tiny glass bottle.

She brandished it at him at length. "Cough medicine, sir."

"Do you actually _read_ this stuff, Lieutenant?"

"No, Sir. Not normally."

Roy looked at her, trying to discern some emotion, until the burning in his throat forced him to turn away and cough spasmodically. That wasn't an answer. He didn't spend much time meditating on what Hawkeye read during spare time; there were always more pressing things to worry about, like avoiding paperwork and bringing down the Führer. He laughed.

"Then—(coughing) this just _appeared_ in your luggage?"

Riza shrugged the tiredness off her shoulders like a blanket; it was no use wallowing in the self-pitying stupor of too-little-sleep. And whose fault was that—? She said, "Well, romances with alchemists in them are always the best—or so said the friend who gave it to me. Take your medicine and go back to bed, Sir. You won't get better otherwise."

Mustang didn't answer, possibly because he'd begun coughing again. She set the bottle and a spoon down on the desk and quickly picked up _The Alchemy of Passion_, hoping the Colonel wouldn't look at it any closer. It hadn't even been a very good romance, as far as harlequins went—the heroine had been far too flippant and the whole _alchemy_ thing was terribly overdone. In any case, if the medicine was strong enough, Mustang would forget he'd ever seen it…

She tucked the book back into the far recesses of the suitcase, where it hopefully would remain for the next ten years.

The colonel coughed, "I never thought that _that_ was where you got your ideas about romance…"

"No, Sir. Only in your dreams, Sir. Now take your medicine and go back to sleep." This had gone on for long enough... As he made no move toward the bottle, Riza briskly walked over, measured out a spoonful, and thrust it into his face.

"A simple question! Is this how you treat…your—" a fit of coughing— "superior officer? I don't get enough vacation time as it is, and when I do—" He was grinning.

"You're obviously in need of medical attention, Sir," Riza said flatly, waiting for her chance. "Should I call the paramedics?"

"That won't be necessary—ackphth!"

Riza took advantage of his open mouth to shove the spoon in and hope that most of it went down and as he sputtered and grimaced.

"It's only six-thirty, Sir," she said with a tiny smile. "Get some sleep."

XXXX

Eleven thirty, and they were finally on their way back to the dry cleaners'. Riza hadn't gone back to bed, but Mustang had, and slept until nine; woken up, seen the expedition about to brave the rain for sake of their clothes, and firmly and coughingly redirected the group toward _somewhere_ they could buy umbrellas.

It was about time, Riza thought. She wondered why she hadn't acted on this fact herself; but with this group, there was always some excuse for thinking about something else. She'd been taking care of them long enough to know…

It was positively amazing how time flew if you didn't keep up with it every moment. Perhaps they should've taken the cars instead of walking—but then they would've missed the sight of the rain, flooding in torrents down the cobbles, dirty; falling in torrents from the sky, clean and cold. The storm might've passed sometime during the night, but another one had rolled in on top of it, because it was pouring harder than ever, pummeling the group's umbrellas and making conversation improbable, at the least.

The colonel was at the head of the line of bundled-up military people, coughing; Riza had his dress uniform neatly folded over one arm, along with all the other clothes that she didn't trust the men to carry. His cold didn't seem to be getting any better; but Riza knew better than to try and keep him out of the weather. The man would walk around in his boxers in a blizzard if he thought it was his duty…

Just another reason. She smiled to herself at the analogy, glad no one could see the picture in her head, and listened to Havoc screaming to Breda over the downpour: "How much do you bet that the hotel will be washed away when we get back…?!"

"Cheat. That's not probability, it's fact!"

"Under _your_ definition, I suppose," Falman muttered…

"Colonel, First Lieutenant," Fuery asked, coming up to where Roy and Hawkeye stood, "What's the holdup?"

Roy gestured. "See for yourself."

Fuery looked. "Gloria will be overjoyed," he stammered, a little paler than usual.

They had come around the corner, in sight of the hotel.

A mass of umbrellas and cars totally obscured the building's front façade, the cars disgorging copious amounts of lavishly dressed people, which the umbrellas conveyed through the rain to the choked front steps and toward the brightly lit entrance hall. Some of the finer ladies seemed to be waiting in their cars, preferring to let the chauffeurs stand about in the rain until the crowds let up and they could go in quickly, their automobiles then transferred to a lot around the side of the building.

In other words, the military group's path was completely blocked, in more ways than one. "It's 11:47, Sir," Falman observed tactfully.

"Go ahead, _Lord Colonel_," Havoc said with a wry, twisted grimace, his eyes wandering over the genteelly jostling mob. "Get us through."

Roy coughed and turned around to face the way they'd come. Glaring at his subordinate could wait; this could be fun. "I don't think that will be necessary," he said. "Follow me."

Riza didn't exactly like the smirk on her superior's face as he headed off around the building at a brisk walk, the rest of the group splashing after. "Sir!" she called out, tapping through the rain to catch up. "Sir!"

"First Lieutenant, as an officer, I've done my job and checked the area for tactical security."

"Which means…" Riza struggled to follow his train of thought, and found it going down a very long tunnel of the unpleasant sort.

"There's a ground-floor window around the back of the smaller rec room. No one will be in there at this point."

There. "And if it's locked, Sir?" Hawkeye had caught on; the woman's mind was working at the problem; there wouldn't be any more catches if she could help it now.

"I suppose the military won't mind paying for that, too," he said, savoring the taste of freedom.

XXXX

Gloria whacked the pool table with the duster and twirled away, trying not to get dirt—or green fuzz—on her dress uniform. Not that anyone would notice; absolutely no customers would be coming into the back lounge, and that, she suspected, was exactly why she was here.

Maybe Miss Hawkeye was right, she thought as she passed the window, remembering something the blonde woman had said to her earlier. She needed to stop missing parts of her shift. Still, twice wasn't _that_ bad—

She stopped and turned as she realized the source of the tapping noise that had started a minute ago.

Staring at her through the dripping glass was Master Sergeant Kain Fuery, tapping furiously at the windowpane and mouthing something.

"What on earth is going on?"

"The crowd out front is way too big to get through," Fuery could be heard saying with his head through the window, which had been suddenly opened from the inside. The rest of the group huddled around staring up at them.

"Mustang," Havoc said, back pressed against the building's wall, "I thought you said this was a _ground floor_ window."

"It is the closest floor to the ground," Mustang said, looking perplexed without doing anything to assist the second lieutenant, who was holding one of Fuery's feet up with his hands and supporting the other on his shoulder, a deep frown on his face.

"Do you guys need me to clear a way for you through the front?" It was Gloria's voice coming from inside, Riza thought. Lucky.

"What time is it, Falman?" she asked over the rain.

Falman consulted his watch. "11:53, Sir."

"Get going up there!" Havoc drawled.

"Well, actually, the crowd's too big. Don't you have a back door or something?" The master sergeant could be heard saying. Alright, Riza thought. Maybe not so lucky.

"Kain!" she cried. "Stop flirting and climb in!"

Havoc made a face as Fuery jerked suddenly; "AAH!" he shrieked, and most of his body disappeared through the aperture. His legs went through a moment later, followed by a thud and a burst of talking.

"Next," Havoc said weightily, stretching. Riza motioned Breda forward to groans from the blonde man. "You better move that fat ass or my back'll break."

"Is that a nice thing to say to a guy who's gonna be putting his foot two inches from your face? I agree, something might break."

"Falman, you next," Riza directed, ignoring her subordinates' banter, as Breda stepped precariously from a trash can to Havoc's shoulders, scowling, and was hoisted in the window with only a few curses. "Then you, Sir. I'll come up last to secure the area."

Good God, was she making a joke? Roy renewed the grin on his face and scrutinized the countenance of the first lieutenant. It was as calm as ever—but maybe—there, he saw it. The hint of a smile.

"Don't let your guard down," Roy reminded her sternly. "No one knows when the enemy will attack."

She nodded in what seemed to be utter seriousness as he followed Falman from trashcan to Havoc's shoulders, warmth hitting his face as he struggled through the window into the rec room, Breda yanking him in by one hand. The room was bright after the dripping of the alleyway behind the building.

Turning, Roy waited until the dry cleaning was shoved up into the gap in a plastic-wrapped bundle and received by Falman. A moment later, Hawkeye's head and torso appeared through the window; she took his waiting hand firmly, bracing her other arm against the side of the windowsill in order to pull her legs up through the gap and step down to the chair that Gloria had placed conveniently within reach of muddy feet.

"Thank you, Sir," Riza said, letting go and attending the distribution of clothing; the Colonel leaned out the window to help pull the complaining Havoc up out of the rain at long last; they'd had to transfer umbrellas up with Falman. She gave Fuery his uniform back first; the shorter man was massaging a lump on the back of his head. "He, um, hit the windowsill," Gloria explained calmly, holding the Master Sergeant's glasses and turning an even more furious shade of red.

"I suppose you didn't think to put the chair underneath until Breda came up," Riza said, smiling, shaking the wrinkles out of Falman's uniform and handing it to him. "You've got water on your blouse, Gloria."

"Haha! …Oh, damn, I do. I guess my boss won't mind, since she means to keep me out of the way in this hole for the rest of the evening..."

"Wow," Fuery said, "that's terrible! You know, we'll have to talk to her about it." He held out his hand.

Gloria stared at it. "Oh!" she said after a moment, and gave him back his glasses. "Sorry!"

"It's okay…"

It was probably noon by now, Riza realized, raising her eyebrows at Roy over the heads of the two of them. "Breda, Havoc," she said quickly, "Go get your clothes and change. The rest of you can just change here—we'll meet in the ballroom at 12:05. Gloria, would you please go tell the management that we'll be a bit late?"

"Of course, Miss Riza—"the brunette snapped, attention suddenly averted— "Right away!" –and scuttled off, blushing worse than ever.

Mustang tossed his coat and shirt across the room to Riza. "Since you're going that way, Lieutenant, take these up to my room."

"Hmm, good idea, Sir. Could you take mine as well?" Falman. Riza nodded and briskly collected his shirt and coat to add to the growing pile of clothes in her arms.

"Was Gloria okay?" Fuery asked. "She looked upset. Take my clothes too, please."

His puzzled look deepened as Mustang, already halfway out of his pants, began to laugh so hard that it overpowered the coughing. Riza stifled a broad smile. "She'll be absolutely fine in a short while, Master Sergeant; don't worry about it."

She exited the room, closing the door firmly behind her, just in time to hear amid the chuckles, "You can't go around thinking all women are as stoic as the First Lieutenant, you know."

XXXX

A/N Every event I try to finish is foiled by my love of little details! —sigh— I guess I'll do the presentation _next_ chapter…

Well, I'm still trying to keep it funny & in ambiance, if anyone knows what I mean. Hopefully I'll have another chapter up by the end of the week. Thanks for all your reviews so far! Though I appreciate all of you so much—I wouldn't ever finish without my reviewers—I do sort of wonder: _how many reviews would I get if all the people who have me on their alerts list reviewed each chapter??_ Hint, hint. Oh well. I'll probably never know. :)

I feel better now than in my first a/n. Hope you guys like the long chapter.

—AA-M


	9. Propaganda

A/N It's taken me a while with this chapter—but since I'm finally finished with the AP U.S. History test, I might have more time! Woohoo! lol. I'll try to post this tonight… need to get my Howl's Moving Castle fix too lately…

Don't worry. Royai trumps them all, at least for now. I think I'm ranting, and this isn't important, so just read the friggin' chapter already. All the delicious setup, I'm afraid, belongs to Arakawa-Sensei (who'd probably freak if she heard people calling her that…)

XXXX

Chapter Nine: Propaganda

XXXX

The hotel's ballroom was expansive; the guests, expensive. Riza, starched and stiff in her dress uniform, watched them file into the rows of seats that had been lined up in the area for the occasion, heavy coats being shaken off and ferried away by servants to reveal the glint of fine fabrics and delicate detail. The ladies in particular flowed daintily in like a shimmering sea of decadence. The first lieutenant, not to be intimidated, was nevertheless a little swept away.

But then again, so were they all.

"I bet these aren't even their _formal_ clothes, either," Breda whispered from the other side of Havoc, to nobody in particular, a wry mixture of chagrin and disbelief on his face. With a weak smile, the blonde man replied, "How much? Twenty?"

They chuckled tersely under their breath, all feeling conspicuous in their drab and relatively-unadorned military blue. Being conspicuous, as anyone learned quite quickly when working under Colonel Mustang, was never a good thing. Though it happened only too often, Riza thought, mind wandering across recent events as she studied the crowd with casual scrutiny. You could never be too cautious.

They were sitting in front of a huge velvet-draped stage with a podium set on top of it; their chairs were facing the sea of aristocracy, but in the lee of the elaborate platform, the row of people were probably eclipsed. A deliberate move by the hotel staff, Riza thought.

Mustang, sitting at the head of the row, coughed into his elbow, then caught Riza's eye over Master Sergeant Fuery's head. "Not yet, Sir," she said. "Wait for the head of staff to introduce us." He rolled his eyes and settled further back into his chair, coughing moodily.

It seemed like a while; fifteen minutes or so, only, until finally, the microphone crackled on, sending a settling murmur through the finally-assembled guests. It was the hawkish woman with the grating voice at the podium performing a patronizing welcome speech—Riza could see why Gloria would loathe the woman…

"As I explained before, they've traveled all the way from Central to speak to you tonight—ladies and gentlemen, I'd like you to please welcome the military delegation under Colonel Roy Mustang."

Mustang, whom Riza had herded around backstage at the last minute with all the other men, made a face, frowning more deeply than before, and coughed one last time before mounting the steps to cross the velvet platform. The Colonel first, then Fuery, Hawkeye, Havoc, Breda, and Falman; the sole woman filed along behind the master sergeant and watched as the sea of aristocracy appeared before her, glittering.

Roy walked imperiously to the back corner of the stage, where he'd been told to stand, and glowered at the audience. The whining redhead witch had told him to look 'commanding but human', but he was an officer, and he was going to look how he felt, dammit. Havoc was speaking first, with the sort of country-boy charm that whoever had written this mass of fill-in-the-blank propaganda had been counting on. Testimonials. Ugh.

"…But the reason I joined the military really comes down to this, I guess: there are a lot of people out there who have lives of their own. It's my job to protect them."

Breda, next.

"Second Lieutenant Heymans Breda speaking. Please believe us when we say that people in the military do make mistakes. But, ladies and gentlemen, _you_ are not going to see them. I myself have seen a lot of things that no one needs to see—with enough hard work, no one will again. The military is doing everything in its power to be in control where situations may become dangerous."

There was a mutter out in the crowd, a shifting of the glittering tide, as Breda finished his spiel and gave way to Fuery. Perhaps they weren't liking what they heard. Standing here made Riza nervous, though not at the thought of addressing even such a group. It was all silliness anyway; and perhaps that itself was the problem…

Fuery spoke in light tones about the military's technological advances, followed by Falman and a simple explanation of the way the new ideas were being used. Just information about their jobs, things that ordinary people didn't really need to know. Maybe the President was trying to bore them into deciding nothing was going on… Boots tapped across the stage floor, jouncing the platform slightly under Riza's feet.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, let me be frank with you: there is a reason why all of you are here today, and I think everyone in this room knows it."

Her eyes automatically slid away from the crowd when she heard his solemn voice boom out through the microphone; there was something in it that even the rustling audience seemed to feel. The room flatlined. Colonel Mustang was speaking.

"Around seven years ago an event happened that reminded us all of the constant battle we face to keep our citizens safe from the violence that happens all too often, even in this day and age. The Ishbal war." Roy stared straight at the podium ahead of him, looking up over the edge occasionally to fling his glance over the crowd. This was the first time he'd been shown the words he was reading; but that was the plan, wasn't it? He took a breath and continued. Practice be damned. He was supposed to be _trying_, but…

"I'll be honest with you: it hasn't been easy neutralizing the continuing threats against Amestris. Bloodshed has been involved, and lives have been lost. The military has made enormous sacrifices to fill the need to protect our country's citizens, but sometimes, damages occur. However, ladies and gentlemen, I need to ask you to trust us to do our job and assure your safety. Even as we speak, the military is working to expose the last of the Ishbalan resistance and prevent more innocent lives from being lost."

Something was wrong with this. Riza didn't catch the logic of it, but she watched him out of the corner of her eye—standing there with his shoulders squared, as though an invisible weight was settled there and it was all he could do to stand straight and speak. The military group was a line of tension drawn across the stage before an audience riveted by emotion they saw no purpose for, proceeding from this haunted man's mouth. The rain on the ballroom's skylights was clearly audible like a faraway voice.

"Alchemists work for the people," Mustang's hollow voice said. "That is the code that we live by. And the State Alchemists employed by the military are no different. My name is Roy Mustang. I am a Colonel in the Military under Fuehrer President King Bradley. And I am the Flame Alchemist, one of a group of state alchemists devoted to enforcing justice and creating peace for the people of Amestris. This will always be the military's first and utmost duty. "

He was silent.

Applause spattered across the hall, then erupted with almost hypnotic force. Torrents of it, like the rain whose sound it drowned out; a deluge of awed clapping. It buzzed in his ears.

Roy stepped away from the podium and walked firmly over to his corner, almost but not quite stifling the fit of coughing that finally caught up to him. He watched First Lieutenant Hawkeye walk to the podium and begin to speak—a sort of sentimental conclusion, he thought, as always, left to the woman. Another wonderful touch of the President-King's propaganda.

Her voice stopped, and she stood down and turned to face him, face if possible even less sentimental than normal. The whole group of his subordinates swiveled with her, unsmiling, and threw him a salute in unison. Then they turned as one to the audience, the Colonel included, and repeated the gesture.

"Dismissed!" Roy shouted.

The director of activities took her cue to climb the stairs as they passed her, smiling a patronizing smile and directing the guests about. What a sickening woman, Roy thought as he led his subordinates offstage and to their seats, letting them all file in before him so he could sink into the chair at the end and let his body be wracked by coughs.

"Absolutely sickening."

"What is it, Sir?" Riza asked under her breath, face level; it was never easy to know who might be watching them.

The man next to her was hunched over his chair, hacking into his elbow. He straightened up at length and tilted his head towards her. "That old bastard," Mustang said finally, a lopsided grin appearing on his face. "He really screwed me over this time. It's absolutely brilliant. This is the guy I should take tips from if I ever want to make it to the top."

He was talking in puzzles again; all she could discern was the frustration beneath the words. "Sir, if you're talking about the Fuehrer, that doesn't really make sense."

"He's the one I have to take down, so I'll have to learn his methods. It's always the best tactic in warfare."

"You need to be more discreet, Sir." Her voice was stern.

Roy met her ruddy brown eyes and looked into them for the first time since they'd entered the ballroom. It felt like hours had gone by—the levity that had buoyed them up was so far removed. That was what you got for thinking, right? He sighed and looked away.

"And to think that there's still six hours left until I can go to sleep," he said. "This is absolute bullshit."

"You've survived worse, Sir."

"I know. Don't remind me."

XXXX

A/N I know, I know. This chapter wasn't funny at all! Sorry!! I'll make up for it next time! The seriousness is in my blood…it is my destiny…I can't hold it back forever…

bla…bla…bla….

So anyway, I expect there'll only be one more chapter like this. But that one will be fun. Hope you like anyway; there was something subtle I was trying to convey, but I don't know whether I pulled it off. Your input would be—as always—very much appreciated.

Thank you, come again! –AA-M


	10. Fashionably Late

Bla bla bla sorry for not updating, bla bla bla…

Wait…haven't we heard this before?

After the AP test, my stress about school has basically vanished, so I can go on living an apathetic life and finishing my homework when I feel like it. Before it's due, of course. I'm such a goody-two-shoes……… ah well.

I feel the need to explain the importance of Roy's speech in the last chapter here, so I guess I'll give in. Basically, the whole thing was designed by the Führer (or someone else high up…we all just assume it was him) to subtly touch on a lot of Roy's remorse and anger about Ishbal, reminding him that he was still under the command of the president and saying all these heroic things about the military—things that hurt him, because they're the opposite of what he believes. Does that make sense??

Anyway, after my odd chapter, it's back to the typical. So sue me.

(Although bowing and offering me chocolate in gratitude is the suggested response.)

XXXX

Chapter 10: Fashionably Late

XXXX

Pounding.

"Hey, Colonel! Open up! It's seven o'clock!"

The pounding changed tempo. Havoc had stopped knocking on Mustang's door and begun rhythmically thumping his head against it. Thump. Thump. Thump.

A door opened finally; but it was only First Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye poking her head out of the room next door, her usual cool stare firmly in place.

Four out of five military men stood in the corridor: Breda, Falman, and Fuery in a semicircle in the hall, slumping crisply in formal suits and shuffling their feet; and Havoc staring at her pathetically from his vantage point with his head against the door.

"First Lieutenant!" "Hawkeye!" "At least _someone_ came out!"

Riza asked, "What's going on out here? Jean?"

"What does it look like, Sir? We're trying to get Mustang out." "He doesn't want to go to the dance." "_I_ don't want to go to the dance. Geez, he's been so antisocial this week." "Ha, Ha. The Colonel? Social? You mean he hasn't been preying on anyone this week…"

Hawkeye waited patiently for the muttered comments to cease, then closed her eyes and nodded. "I'll see what I can do," she said calmly, and her head disappeared into the door again.

Four men breathed a sigh of relief. Only a minute or so later, Colonel Roy Mustang, dressed in a pantsuit and tie, appeared at the door and, without so much as a word, began walking imperviously down the hall in the direction of the stairs. "Hey," Havoc mumbled, shoved off the door itself. "I was just getting comfortable."

"Men!" Roy called over his shoulder. "I'll have opportunities tonight to ingratiate myself with the upper classes. Their favor is imperative at this point in time—" he stopped walking long enough to cough into his elbow at length. The rest of the group hurried to catch up, watching their footing in their worn-once-a-year dress shoes.

"What about Lieutenant Hawkeye?" Falman asked while his superior was catching his breath. They'd all heard the climbing-the-command-ladder lecture dozens of times anyway.

"What about her?" Roy said. "She said she would be down 'shortly'."

"She _is_ a woman," Breda mused after a second. "She'll probably take another half an hour."

XXXX

If the medicine hadn't actually kicked in by the time Roy entered the ballroom, he'd had ample time to convince himself that it had. It wouldn't do to be coughing in the faces of the people he'd one day be leading—Führer or none. His job was to protect people, right? He must assume that this meant from all things, including his cold, which was an absolute monster.

After the presentation, he'd hovered about the rec room for several hours while his subordinates played pool and valiantly resisted attempts by the overly-hospitable staff to get them drunk. Apparently, that was what the dance was for. He'd left only after his coughing had attracted the concern of just about every milling, bored aristocratic lady who hadn't gone off for some sort of hotel-sponsored early dinner; at the unusually strong urging of Lieutenant Hawkeye, he'd gone to his room and slept until six thirty. And he was only interrupted four times by his stupid subordinates knocking on his door. Obviously they didn't know, as Roy did, that Hawkeye would've woken him up in plenty of time if she found it necessary.

Whose ridiculous idea was this _dance_, anyway?

The military group swept into the ballroom, Roy at its decisive head, ten minutes late. Ah, well, the Colonel thought, squaring his shoulders for the ordeal. He'd already decided to make the best of it. He was suitably gratified to see heads turning as they walked briskly through the crowd, trying to find a good place to mingle. Some familiar faces, for a start…

Breda and Falman, of course, immediately peeled off in search of the punch bowl. Hopefully they would find some people to make a good impression on while inebriated, though it was unlikely. With Havoc and Fuery off on some sort of reconnaissance mission, probably for that brunette girl with the glasses, Roy was on his own.

Well, he was worse than on his own: Hawkeye hadn't even shown up yet. He sneezed and strolled slowly through the sea of people, looking for someone to begin a conversation with. The gentry were even more fascinating close up, and threateningly overwhelming. Breda had been right earlier: these, Roy assumed, _were_ the upper classes' formal clothes, crisp and officious gilt-edged suits for the men, and voluptuous draperies covered in dazzling arrays of lace and jewels for the women. They were…just…so…bright.

Fortunately for the Colonel, there were plenty of people who wanted to see _him_. Unfortunately, two-thirds of them were ladies, and another sixth were old men who wanted to give him their long lists of meaningless names and titles and recommend what they thought military command should do to fix the problems about money leaking to the proletariat. Even more unfortunately, he was in just the position to bow and be polite to every last one of them, even if it meant dancing with the ladies.

The dancing was to start in earnest at seven forty-five, the activities director had informed them, smiling mightily. The previous hour was devoted to consuming whatever amounts of alcohol necessary to render this a palpable idea.

Roy shrugged, applied a new fake smile, and dove courteously into the fray.

XXXX

It'd been a while since she'd worn a dress—or, more importantly, makeup of any kind—so it took Riza only fifteen minutes longer than she'd expected to get ready for the ball. This was a feat, she told herself through the punctuality alarms ringing in her head. She shouldn't be annoyed, although she was.

She found her way at a brisk clip down the stairs and through several glowing corridors, following the sound of music and low speech that overcame the distant sounds of rain on the roof as she approached. Without the stage and masses of chairs, the ballroom was a spectacle—a vastly open, echoing tile space filled with the spotlight glare of pristine white lighting. Casting an appraising glance around her, she couldn't see the military group anywhere. Although, knowing the men, they were probably near alcohol.

The last thing Colonel Mustang needed in his condition was to get drunk. Filled with renewed purpose, Riza was about to set off into the crowd when a squeak caught her attention:

"Oh my goodness! You let your _hair_ down!!"

The first lieutenant turned.

"I thought you _never_ did that!" Gloria squealed, tapping over and clapping her hands together, gold dress puffing around her ankles. "It looks really good!"

"Yours too," Riza said, indicating the brunette's hair, pulled up into a mass of curls by some sort of sparkling clip. "I didn't know it curled like that."

"Oh, it isn't. It's such a bitch to do," Gloria said, rolling her eyes. "Anyway, did you military people just come in?"

"I don't know where the men are. I'm a little late."

Gloria's smile contracted a fraction of an inch and she looked to the side. "Oh well. Just say you're fashionably late."

"Fashionably or not," Riza said, "I dislike being late to anything."

"Oh, I noticed."

The taller woman looked at her companion, who grinned at her, unabashed. "I was just going to find the Colonel," Riza said. "He's probably already had too much to drink."

"Okay, then." Gloria giggled. "If you see Mr. Fuery, let him know I said hello."

"Aren't you coming to the dance?"

The brunette's smile shrank once more. "My boss said I can't. I have to work restocking the tables to make up for the time I missed on my last few shifts."

Riza patted the girl on the shoulder, unsure of what to say. "I'm sorry."

"Me, too."

XXXX

"That's preposterous!"

"It's how life is sometimes, Kain," Riza told Master Sergeant Fuery, whom she'd found at length skulking around the outskirts of the room looking sorry for himself. "I suppose you won't get to see her new dress."

Fuery scowled ferociously behind his glasses, turned red, and shook his fist futilely at the ceiling. "We've got to do _something_!"

He looked utterly pathetic. "We'll think of something," the First Lieutenant observed astutely. Yet another thing she would have to work on herself. First Mustang, and now this… "Master Sergeant, come with me and let's see if we can find the Colonel."

She walked off, Fuery trailing behind her, spouting nonsense every so often about unfair treatment of workers. Well, it _was_ good to see him so passionate about something other than the rescue of stray animals.

They didn't find Mustang at the drink tables, but they did find Havoc. "Oh, hey, Sir," he said happily, balancing a cup precariously between two fingers. "You look nice. Look—they have these fancy wine glasses for this thing! They're pretty nice!"

"Thank you. You look nice too, Second Lieutenant," Riza said, raising her eyebrows at him. "And you _would_ think they would keep the nice glasses hidden away from all the yokels in places like these. Do you know where Colonel Mustang is?"

"Oh! That's right! He just left because—"

"FIRST LIEUTENANT HAWKEYE, IT IS YOU! HOW AMAZING THAT WE SHOULD MEET AT SUCH A TIME!! YOU LOOK ABSOLUTELY LOVELY!!"

Riza spun and sidestepped just in time to avoid the crushing force of two huge arms that materialized loomingly above her, attached to an equally huge body somehow crammed into an enormous suit. Havoc and Fuery stared.

"I didn't know you were going to be here, Major Armstrong," Riza said.

Eyes screwed shut and gushing tears, the enormous major bent down to the blonde woman's face level and bowed; she narrowly avoided the hug hidden in the gesture and instead was treated to a vigorous handshake. "Yes," he said, straightening up and laying a hand over his heart, "My family has been blessed with wealth and power, and it is our illustrious duty to attend all such functions that…"

All three other military people sighed deeply and failed utterly to look interested.

"…we unfortunately had to skip the speech, but we are privileged to attend this party with the unique military and civillian perspective that has been cultivated by the Armstrong family for generations! Oh, look, the music is starting! First Lieutenant Hawkeye, would you care to dance?"

Resistance was, as always, utterly futile.

Craning her neck to see the Major's faraway face, Riza was drawn expertly across the floor to join the growing flood of couples beginning to dance to the rising music. She wasn't particularly comfortable with this. Major Armstrong was quite a talented dancer; there were only problems if you liked your feet to stay on the floor.

Time for tactic B, thought the woman, neck cricking as she was thrown backwards again. Diversion. "Major, do you think you could possibly do something to help Master Sergeant Fuery?"

"Hrm—" A dizzying spin— "What's the matter?"

At least she wasn't flying through the air anymore, Riza thought as she explained.

"Ah, the poor man! I, Alex Louis Armstrong, will speak to this 'boss' at once!"

"Do you think your mother or father could speak to her instead?"

"Of course, Lieutenant, I see what you mean. We must not look too affiliated. Someone will need to find the Activities Director and bring her over…and someone will need to inform my parents…"

"Didn't Second Lieutenant Havoc meet your family once?"

"Ah, so he did. Too bad my lovely little sister Catherine couldn't be here tonight."

Riza decided that this was a good thing. "Too bad," she said emphatically. "I suppose I'll go inform them."

She tried to escape, but Armstrong instead twirled them around to the edge of the dance floor and veritably _flung_ her into Master Sergeant Fuery. "We must be surreptitious!" he called out, taking the hand of an oncoming lady in a sparkling manner and dancing off into the flood. Riza sighed and dragged the confused Fuery back into the middle of the dance floor before he could protest. That, she supposed, was _one_ way to accomplish what they needed.

"Sir, what's going on?"

They danced slowly, the utterly mystified Fuery holding her waist tentatively at best. "Don't worry, Master Sergeant," Riza said quietly to him, directing them back and forth with only a little difficulty. "The major and I have everything under control. If you'll go and keep your friend Gloria in here for a little while, I think her boss will let her join us. I heard she was going to be restocking the drink tables."

It was rather odd looking down at the man you were dancing with, although she had to admit that it was better than breaking your neck looking up. A delighted grin spread across Fuery's face. "Thank you, Sir!" he said, already putting a more energy into his step.

They spun across the floor, plotting, until Riza saw Falman at the other edge of the crowd, talking to Breda and doing his best not to look too busy with his wine glass. She motioned; Fuery gratefully dropped her arm and hurried off toward the tables again.

Alright, this wasn't so bad. She danced from Falman to Breda and back again, planning into their ears under her breath: no one needed to get suspicious, if that was even probable. Both were passable dancers; Breda with a sort of shuffling attention to the place of each step, and Falman with long-limbed and somewhat protracted movement. Every time she switched partners, she was aware of the different ways they arranged their arms around her waist, almost overly modest and perhaps a little leery—though she couldn't imagine why…

"Falman, you and Breda should find the Activities director and talk to her about particulars…"

Step, step, switch: a new body, a new orientation.

"Remember to maneuver her to the left side of the hall there, Second Lieutenant."

"Oh brother. Lemme guess, the Major is in on this somehow, isn't he?"

Riza sighed for what felt like the thousandth time that night. "Unfortunately, yes. Look—there's Havoc. I need to talk to him also."

"Oh, brother," Breda said again. "No problem, Sir." A few minutes later, he passed his superior on to Havoc— "You won't need this anymore," he said, snatching Havoc's half-full wineglass from his hand as he stepped off the dance floor.

Havoc rolled his eyes. "Geez. Can't even let a guy finish his booze." He took Riza's arm with one large hand and set the other gingerly on her back. "What's going on, Sir?"

The woman ignored growing annoyance with her subordinates in general—weren't they a little old to be so uncomfortable with women?—to explain the situation.

"We need you to find Major Armstrong and his parents and bring them to the left side of the hall, where they can speak with Gloria's boss—is something the matter, Lieutenant?"

Havoc's jaw had dropped to the floor.

"Have you _seen_ the major's parents, Sir?"

It took fully five minutes to convince Havoc to do his military duty and go near the Armstrong family, but Riza managed it in the end. By that time, dancing had lost whatever appeal it had ever contained for her; she would've left the dance floor, but with Havoc hurrying off, several gentlemen materialized out of the crowd, identified her as the military group's sole woman, and promptly propelled her back into the routine. Impartial strangers who chatted at her for a few minutes, arms around her in a polite, arbitrary fashion, and then murmured condolences and changed partners, handing her off to someone else.

She murmured her own thanks and continued, caught up in the flow, edging her way toward the side of the dance floor in hopes of leaving to go find out how things were going.

Switch, spin, laugh kindly, another set of arms and nameless face: she wasn't really paying attention as yet another man in a dark suit took her hand in the rhythm of the dance, talking over his shoulder to the someone else who was already moving away— "Yes, ma'am, I'm sure the military will consider it. My pleasure to—" he turned to face her.

"Oh, First Lieutenant!" said Roy Mustang.

That's funny, Riza thought, a smile breaking onto her face. I was just thinking about you.

XXXX

A/N

I swore to myself I wouldn't do any more split chapters…

so chapter 11, which was originally the last half of chapter 10, will have a different title. gotta love the logic.

Anyway, that chapter's almost written, and I'll be posting it soon. I was going to a/n saying 'unlike all the other half-chapters I've posted, this one is already complete!'

…but it's not, so I can't.

Anyway, thanks for reading again…reviews are always appreciated…bla bla bla

Royai forever hearts,

AA-M


	11. Unsurprisingly

A/N wow, I have absolutely nothing to say… --thinks-- Oh!

I'm really glad for all the positive & thoughtful responses to the last chapter. I honestly didn't think it was that remarkable…

My heart always beats a little faster when I'm checking my email for alerts just after I post a chapter… and yesterday's no different…and then… --shrieks:-- "ZOMG!! 10 REVIEWS IN ONE DAY!!!"

You guys are the best.

(…You girls? I dunno if any guys are actually reading this fic anyway, you know what I mean. So, on to the chapter!)

XXXX

Chapter 11: Unsurprisingly

XXXX

Fuery found Gloria at the drink table.

She tried to slide away again through the crowd, muttering something about missing her shift, but he caught up and said the first thing that came into his mind.

"Gah! Dancing with the First Lieutenant is _scary_!"

It was, apparently, the right thing to say. Gloria turned around peevishly and peered at him from behind a pile of dirty cups. "You two danced?"

"No, no!" The master sergeant felt himself go red again. "Ha ha. I mean, yes, but not like _that._ She danced with everyone else too. I think it was the easiest way for them to plan without arousing suspicion. They're always planning something…" he trailed off and rubbed the back of his neck, feeling small.

Gloria squeaked, suddenly pink, and rebalanced her load. "Oh, no, I didn't mean it that way—" she said quickly, waving a finger apologetically since her arms were full of wine glasses. "I just meant—well…"

"What?" Fuery was curious. He couldn't think of any other reason she would wonder…

Except, well… But that was just Havoc and Breda's influence on his mind…right?

She looked at the ground and made a thoughtful face. "I just can't see her dancing with anyone but that Mustang guy."

XXXX

Riza looked up at her superior,

She said, noting what he'd been saying to the anonymous lady, "It's your pleasure to do what, now?"

"I forgot already," Roy said with a vindictive smile. "She probably asked if the military could fix the sewer system or lighten up the border restrictions with Xing so she could get her clothes legally. They all want the same things."

It was true. He'd been getting entirely fed up with this whole process. He was glad Hawkeye had finally shown up—complaining about things to the First Lieutenant always made him feel better. She was easier to dance with, too; her touch lacked the hesitance of the forgettable faces that'd been fluttering around him all evening. Gentle, yes; but not polite. He was utterly sick of politeness in any shape or form.

"Ah well," he continued, "It doesn't matter. What took you so long?"

"To get ready, or to dance with you, Sir?" She hadn't really had time to look over his clothing earlier; and of course she _needed_ to, given that… Well, she could be honest, at least with herself. She just wanted a chance to see him in something other than typical military wear. Riza smiled into Mustang's shoulder, where he hopefully couldn't see, and pulled back slightly to take in the effect of the formal clothes: a well-fitted jacket whose seams traced broad shoulders, bottoned snugly over his chest. And—

Roy twirled her around his hand. "Sharp, aren't you, First Lieutenant? Either one would be fine," he said. "Start at the beginning."

Riza found herself utterly unsurprised in the relatively new awareness that dancing with the Colonel was much better than dancing with any of their subordinates.

"Well, Sir, I just have a few more things to get ready than you men do. Or perhaps it pays to, as Gloria put it, be _fashionably late_. Speaking of Gloria, I've just arranged for the Armstrongs to pay a visit to her boss, so hopefully she'll be allowed to join us at some point."

Roy suppressed a manic chuckle, imagining the major looming over the activities director while sparkling profusely. "That woman doesn't stand a chance," he agreed. Obviously Hawkeye wasn't going to elaborate on the process of getting ready—but what did he expect? Her dress was suitably obscure as it was: it looked as though it could've even come from Xing. A floor-length traditional robe in several soft shades of peach that, for all its layers of cloth, draped very nicely in the places that mattered…

He was smiling. "How's your cold, Sir?" Riza asked, glad that he'd perhaps gotten over whatever had been bothering him since the presentation. "Are you feeling better?"

She thought. It wasn't that Mustang was a better dancer, because his skill was as mediocre as the rest of them, excluding Major Armstrong. But…the way he held her, arm curled firmly around her waist, one hand resting in the small of her back and the other meeting hers brusquely in the air, had a quality that everyone else in the dance hall lacked—as far as Riza was concerned. His body had lost all the vague politics of a stranger the moment he'd turned to see her face: a solid, familiar, compelling touch.

"No. But there's nothing I can do about it. The wine helps, though."

"Sir! I warned you about—"

"I know, I know." They spun across the floor, not particularly watching their feet, just flowing. "There's a lot of opportunities for me here tonight, if I can just sort them out from all the mindless masses. I've already heard of a few retired military people who might have connections in useful places."

She was looking slightly up at him, red-brown eyes narrowed in focus, her right hand cupped against his shoulder so that he felt the steady warmth through his suit jacket. She asked, "What do you need me to do, Sir?"

Roy felt his mouth twitch. She tried so hard: every time his concentration waned for a slight wrenching moment, her single-minded focus brought him back. "Sometimes you learn things just by being quiet and listening to other people," he said, looking down and thinking. So he was being selfish. His head had been throbbing almost since he'd entered the ballroom, and it was getting in the way of thought. At least the medicine had temporarily stopped the coughing.

"I see, Sir," she said quietly, and looked away, turning with his lead and almost imperceptibly leaning forward into the dance, head tipped forward so that he could feel each slight exhalation against his neck. "Whatever I can do, just let me know."

She was _technically_ doing what he wanted, Riza thought through slight guilt.

Instead of the music or other people's conversations, she listened to him breathing.

XXXX

On his way once again into deep peril, which was once again due to the sheer persuasiveness of his superiors, Lieutenant Havoc met Breda and Falman and stopped to gather his nerve. They were heading in the oppsite direction, but he flagged them down and they stopped just outside the dance floor.

"What'sa matter, Havoc?" Breda said, after taking one look at the blonde man's face. "You look like you were dancing with First Lieutenant Hawkeye."

"Well, as a matter of fact..." Havoc trailed off in favor of snatching Breda's wineglass from his hand and draining half its contents in one gulp.

"She danced with everyone," Falman pointed out. "It's not like Fuery could've gone around doing that himself."

"Heheh…imagine _that…_" Breda mused.

"I dunno, Bradykins—"

"_Argh!_"

"—I think dancing with Fuery might be _better_."

"There's something I'd pay to see," Falman interjected. Then, thinking again, he nodded. "It is…strange, though. I suppose it has to do with her being a superior officer…"

To mild protest, Breda took the wineglass from Havoc again and tossed the rest down. "Yeah, you're right. But it's not really _that_, you know…"

They turned as one to Falman, who twitched and downed his remaining wine before anyone could make a move for it. "No, I suppose not…I mean, imagine what…well, it would seem that…ah, the Colonel…"

The three men looked at each other in silent agreement, all shuddering slightly. Recovering the shared cup one last time, Havoc tipped the last drop down his throat and declared their collective conclusion.

"It's like Roy _owns_ her!"

XXXX

Shortly thereafter, the hotel's activities director found herself strolling across the dance hall in conversation with two curious military men who very earnestly met her eyes while very earnestly uttering complete nonsense. She thought there was something about wineglasses in the protracted speech; the tall one kept being on the verge of asking her a question, which was the only reason she kept talking to the dunces—who knew what they _thought_ was on the schedule? Bowling for heads or bathing in beer or _something_ of the sort, she was sure…

A shadow fell across her, and she recognized some of the patrons she'd welcomed in that afternoon. It was difficult _not_ to recognize them, in fact… She smiled cordially and then bolted the expression to her face as the imperious, elderly gentleman verily swooped down on her with an officious grin, shaking her hand.

"Ma'am, I'm so glad to meet you! The organization tonight was wonderful!"

Jiggling back and forth, the woman managed to free herself. "Thank you very much," she said with what she hoped was a winning smile. "If you should need anything, please feel free to contact—"

The man interrupted with a thoughtful _harrumph_. "Oh, I see! What splendid service, ma'am! Dear," —turning to the looming thin woman who was obviously his wife— "Is there anything you can think of?"

"The girl," she said. "Ask her about the girl."

"Oh, yes! Tell me, my good woman, there's a short brown-haired girl employed here, is there not? She wears glasses—I believe her name was…"

"Gloria?" the director asked, feeling her smile sour as the man nodded, though the expression remained clutched onto her face. This couldn't be good. "What about her? Has she misbehaved? I assure you that—"

"Heavens, no!" the enormous man bellowed with a good-natured scowl. "I wanted to thank her for how well she served us this afternoon! It's a credit to the hotel that such a nice young woman works here. I hope—" he leaned down to the director's eye level, and she kept herself from backing up by sheer force of will— "that she will be able to come to the dance tonight for a while so we can thank her properly. In any case, it would be a pity for such a sweet young girl to waste away in the kitchens on a night like tonight. All the young men will want to stay here more often, I'm sure. Ho ho ho!" He chuckled and straightened up.

"I'll see what I can do, Sir," the activities director said sharply with a forced laugh, beginning to breathe again. "Just ask if you need anything else!"

"I'll be looking out for her!" the man called jovially after her.

She slipped away into the crowd hastily, assuming her 'grim overseer' face with relief. Oh, these military things just did _not_ go well. There was no use upsetting the gentry—the girl would just have to work overtime tomorrow to make up for it. Tomorrow…and perhaps the next day…and the following month …

She sighed tersely, feeling only slightly better. "Gloria!"

XXXX

Only an hour and a half later, Roy managed to separate himself from the group of gentlemen he'd been having cordial conversation from and slump off toward the drink table, hoping to dull his headache. If only he could've stayed hidden on the dance floor for the rest of the night—Lieutenant Hawkeye, he was sure, could've helped. All the bodies in the room made it hot despite the weather outside; he'd been more grateful than he could think for her cool breath on his neck and cool gaze on his face. Dances, however, moved on. So did life, unfortunately for the Colonel and his cold.

He realized what he was thinking about, considered the fact that the illness was getting to his brain, and discarded it in the favor of the idea that he was just thirsty from dancing and talking.

Unsurprisingly, his male subordinates were leaning against the wall near the drink table, looking pleased with themselves. He heard their conversation through the haze of talking as he picked a wineglass and sauntered over.

They were watching the couples on the dance floor; one in particular.

"Huh," Falman said calculatingly, "I didn't know Fuery could dance."

Havoc laughed uproariously. He said, "I didn't know Fuery _had_ a—hey, Mustang!"

The Colonel waved slightly. "Lieutenant Havoc," he said, supressing a tickle in his throat, "you were saying?"

"It's just not fair!" Havoc grumped into his wineglass, slouching against the wall. "I mean, he never even _acts_ like women exist and then suddenly, she's all nice to _him_—"

"Poor ickle Havoc-kins," Breda said. "Go cry in a corner. Roy, remember the last time he got rejected—"

"Well," Falman said, "it's not like he got rejected this time, he didn't even say anything…"

"Rot in hell…" Havoc said mournfully. "Colonel, _someone's_ got to understand… Oh, wait, you don't know the _meaning_ of having trouble with women…"

"You people are giving me a headache!" Roy said loudly, which didn't help his throbbing temples. This was even worse than the ladies and gentlemen. Should he really be surprised? He lifted his wineglass to his lips—

"No kidding," Breda said to Havoc, and they both began laughing uncontrollably—

"Oh, thank you, Sir!" First Lieutenant Hawkeye said brightly and sharply, appearing out of the crowd and grabbing the glass out of his hand. She took a very small sip and stepped out of reach of his

Roy scowled at her. "Lieutenant, are you drunk?" he asked.

Falman started laughing along with the others. Breda gasped. "Ha ha—he asks if _she's_ drunk—" and Havoc, tears streaming down his face, added, "What did I say, Colonel? I'm telling you, you've got it _made_—!"

Riza stared at her giggling subordinates in perplexity. "No, sir," she said, "I am not drunk. Neither are you, and you aren't going to be getting there anytime soon."

"Damn," Roy said, causing Havoc, Breda, and Falman to redouble in laughter. He pulled the shreds of his thoughts together. "I'm sorry, I'm having a hard time thinking right now. It gets hot in here with all the people."

Riza was wearing long sleeves, but she couldn't say she understood what he was talking about. He'd been alright for a while, but the medicine had probably worn off…and what with previous late nights…

"It's eleven fiftteen, Sir," she said more mildly. "Go to bed. You shouldn't push yourself so hard—after all, you're still sick. Can you make it upstairs?"

"Yes, First Lieutenant, I'll be fine." Roy shambled off around the edge of the dance floor, massaging his aching head with one hand. It really was _hot_. Hawkeye would take care of the rest of the hoodlums that called themselves his subordinates. He was far too soft on them…not like they were really subordinate to him when it came down to it…but there was no place in the military for a quitter like this…he had to…

…He had to…

He didn't really know how he got to his room, but he managed it somehow, stumbled into nightclothes, and fell into bed.

XXXX

A/N…I wrote most of this in one sitting, for which I will pay tomorrow morning at 5:45. wow, it's only 11:07… I'll end up like Roy if I'm not careful.

I hope this chapter ending isn't too weird, but I sorta like it. I'll re-read it tomorrow and think, WTH? but it'll be worth it to see the reviews. 

goodnight, gracie. –AA-M


	12. Only Dreams

A/N Despite an unfortunate incident involving my head and a water polo ball this afternoon, I must continue writing. Forgive any mistakes made because of lost brain cells. Moving on…

Somehow, I've finally made it to the chapter I've been waiting for.

Yes, this chapter is the whole reason the previous eleven were written.

Am I pathetic, or what? it's not the end, but I can say with some certainty that it's the climax. I'm running on biofuel adrenaline at the moment, just trying to pump out one more relatively-consecutive chapter, so it'll be fun to see where it ends up.

Ahem… the writing calls.

XXXX

Chapter Twelve: Only Dreams

XXXX

The tiredness was waiting for Riza behind her door along with the ever-patient Black Hayate when she finally plodded up the stairs at midnight.

It pounced as soon as she entered the darkened room, fumbling for the light switch—the feeling that had been hovering around the corners of her eyes since eight-forty-five, previously ignored, swelled against her temples with the insistent pressure of a woolen blanket muffling any clear attempt at thought.

—She was absolutely exhausted—!

Rounding up her subordinates had taken time and patience; Riza had the weary pride of knowing few other women who could hold up under the mental abuse of three very drunk men giggling like schoolgirls every time they looked at her face. She couldn't imagine what they'd been laughing at and had no desire whatsoever to even try. What had she been _thinking_? Perhaps she'd gotten a collective ten hours of sleep for the past two days; her limbs were leaden.

Herding the men out of the ballroom in dignified intoxication, she'd only stopped to talk for a few moments to Gloria and Fuery, the only people out of the group who appeared to have kept their wits about them, one way or another. Although that depended on your point of view…

While neither or them were drunk, delirious, or on the verge of a mental breakdown, they seemed utterly oblivious to the fact that they were in a ballroom surrounded by large crowds of _other people_. Gloria stopped dancing long enough to smile radiantly at Riza's hastily-worded greeting and proceeded to stare at her with a happily dismissive face that told the blonde woman that she was not comprehending a word. Fuery, looking minutely more aware, mouthed "Thank you, Sir!" at Riza before laughing at something the brunette girl said and whisking her off again through the music. _They_ didn't seem to have problems staying awake.

Stumbling into her pajamas with a chill she hadn't noticed before enveloping her bare skin, Riza found herself fiercely envying them in a way she was entirely unprepared for. Too tired to put it out of her mind, she forfeited her evening routine of cleaning for the first time she cared to think of and sank into bed with her eyes already half-closed, gathering her protesting dog to her chest to leech some of his canine warmth. Heaven. Cold, but comfortable. Bliss.

She expected herself to blank out immediately. She did it normally, when she wasn't tired—just turned her brain off and slept. But instead, her mind took dizzying loops around memories of the night, lingering on the same sensations over and over, half-conscious, unable to stop thinking.

She couldn't sleep.

Prying her eyes open after an indeterminate amount of time, Riza laid in bed with the darkness seeping through her skin, exhaustion settled like a dead weight on her eyelids. This was terrible. Straining her ears through the quiet, she focused on the sound of the rain drumming her window, a far-off and gentle patter reminding her of the relative security she was fortunate to have…

But there was something else, under Hayate's sleeping sighs and over the distant insistence of the storm. Riza sat up in bed and leaned forward, tuning to the room next to hers, and vaguely caught the sound again, a noise of unrest. It could be nothing, except for the feeling that snagged in her throat…

She sighed and got out of bed, bare feet wincing on the cold floor. There was no way it could be…no, she would not be interrupting anything. Reason dictated; she turned her light on as low as she could and crept to the door between the rooms, concern fluttering in her chest.

The woman opened the door and peered in, if only just to check.

XXXX

Roy dreamed of children that night. Ishbal children that danced across the scorching sand, screaming in laughter, their eyes glowing like embers and reflecting the fire that surrounded them on all sides in a blazing inferno. They giggled and ran towards him across the earth, flames catching behind their bare brown feet; where he whirled and struck them, shying away from their sticky grasping hands, clear water gushed from their sides, flesh crushing in like bruising fruit.

It wasn't water; it was sticky, like blood, and it clung to his hands. He rolled across the sand and pawed against it: but he had a purpose! Getting up, he tried to snatch the smiling faces out of the fire that crackled against his skin, and his hands kept going through them, and fear rose through the liquid tar that spread over his arms, crawling up his face, cloying his nostrils…

The children laughed and screamed. And Roy clawed his way through the sand and tried to warn them: tried to run: tried to _breathe_ through the weight on his chest…

It was _hot_.

_Why couldn't he just sleep?_ But he couldn't open his eyes. _Dammit, why couldn't he wake up??_ But he was awake—there was sand wrapping his limbs—he wasn't awake—and his whole body felt sticky, and it was_ hot as hell._ A crinkly taste, or smell, or feeling invaded his mind, and he focused his head on it until it pieced his chest, too strong to hold, and let go, feeling himself slipping off the edge of a vast plane spinning that he scrabbled to hold onto. _Gravity had betrayed him_...

Something intensely cool caught ahold of one of his reaching hands and would not let go. It was imperative that he get away—it was too late for him—he cried out against it, thrashing suddenly-free limbs, and choked on the liquid that was incomprehensibly in his mouth.

He was gradually aware of _cool_, fighting the heat in roils and shivers; with it, a voice, a voice the color of water, a monologue that faded in and out incomprehensibly.

"Speak up!" he said; or, at least, in the dream he said it. He felt his lips moving, but they were numb and probably didn't work anyway. "Go away!" he said. And, "Don't forget to put it out!"

The fire became too unbearable; he could no longer move under the thickness on his chest; the last thing he was aware of was a pressure on his hand, the one constant the flow of some soothing words he wished to God he could comprehend.

XXXX

It was dark. His head pulsed dully, but the air around it was no longer burning. Roy realized after a moment of bleary thought that while he felt like the devil, his fever was gone; he must've fallen asleep sometime in between the two states.

A jumble of images and textures were swimming around in his mind from earlier. He'd been hallucinating at more than one point. Sand and fire were parts of the dream. Darkness, sweat, and heat were the even-less-comfortable reality. And the voice…

He sat up slowly, wondering, and as he did so his right hand slipped forward and slightly away from its position. It was only then, as the normal state returned, that Roy became aware of the difference—in feel, in temperature—against his fingers. He looked.

She was slumped against the side of the bed with her legs folded under her, body rising and falling slightly with each breath, hair fanned across the comforter. She'd fallen asleep holding his hand with a, a warm pressure he'd disturbed by sitting up.

Involuntarily, Roy felt to put it back the way it had been; he succeeded only in curling his fingers up and around hers, which wasn't quite right. He could feel her skin, smooth and cold, where she hadn't been touching him before.

Roy sat and stared at Lieutenant Hawkeye's half-covered, sleeping face for what seemed like a long time.

He should do something, he thought after a while. There was something about this situation he knew the conscious First Lieutenant wouldn't approve. It filtered in a few protracted blank thoughts later: they were in the same room, and shouldn't wake up there in the morning.

Her hair fluttered slightly with each steady breath. With a sudden flash of clarity, the mean realized that while he'd been sleeping just fine beyond that first late night, the ridiculous woman had stayed up two nights in a row, and she probably hadn't even gone back to sleep when he woke her up God-knows-when the previous morning. No wonder she'd fallen asleep sitting by his bedside, waiting for the fever to break…

Another few minutes, and he worked up the muscle to tug his hand from hers and gingerly roll himself over, crawling his legs up underneath the covers until he could swing his feet down to the floor without disturbing the sleeping woman. So far, so good, he thought, the world spinning. Now all he needed to do was pick her up, carry her into her own room…

Roy tried to stand up and failed. The room swam enormously as he heaved to his feet, and his stomach lurched sideways, throwing bile into his mouth. Sitting again a little too quickly, he shivered uncontrollably, legs trembling in protest. It just wouldn't work, he thought, letting his vision clear over a too-short period of time. He was too weak.

The Colonel stared at his knees, watching little blobs of static chase one another across his vision. Eventually he shook his head, able to come up with only one conclusion.

He moved slowly, trying to upset his internal organs as little as possible. Slowly, so she wouldn't wake up, he shuffled along until he could reach down and half-heave, half-roll the lax body up, to the other side of the bed.

She lay on her side, hands twitching a few times; Roy held his breath, but the woman didn't wake. Good. Maneuvering blankets, he managed to straighten the sheets enough to cover her, stuffing the single pillow under the blonde head. The air was icy cold—though it was probably just in comparison with his own feverish body.

This would have to do for now. Roy slipped back under the blankets with his face turned to the opposite wall, trying to settle his head on the bare mattress. Gah. There was no _space_. He rolled over again to keep his back to the frigid air: what a nuisance.

He remembered how cold her skin was.

Slowly—she couldn't wake up—he reached out in the dark and brushed her bare shoulder, superficially chill, with his fingers. The blanket didn't seem to be doing its job, though he supposed it hadn't been given a real chance. Roy traced her arm to reach her hand, cold and curled on the other side of her body against her diaphragm.

He sighed and gave in. Just for a moment, he moved close and curled himself against her back, draping his arm over hers and grasping her cold hand, feeling the difference in temperature as his body heat began to warm her skin. It would just be for a moment—he bent his head forward, seeing no reason not to use the pillow as well, and found her hair in his face, and the back of her neck feeling like ice against his nose and his lips. Just for a moment to make sure she was warm, and then he could move back to his own side and let the lieutenant be…

Just a moment longer and he would move… he _should_ move…

XXXX

Light.

Riza Hawkeye was awake without knowing how she got that way—although maybe it had to do with the _light_. She couldn't hear the rain anymore.

The air seemed to have crystallized around her while she slept, nipping her exposed face with a clear frostiness. A ray of ice-bright light from a crack in the curtains spilled across her pillow, giving the dazzling sense that she was encased in some sealed, frozen-white gem.

But Riza wasn't cold. It wasn't because of the blankets covering her; it was the warmth beside her, the gentle heat of a human body breathing against her own, exhalations that spilled across the back of her neck. This bed was oriented differently than the one in her room, and the window was in the wrong place, she thought calmly.

Wondering absently why she _was_ so absent about it all, her brain placidly found something that made sense. The reason why she wasn't worried at all about getting up, finding out where she was and who was sleeping next to her, was because this was a dream.

Besides, with the simple awareness of dreams, Riza knew whose arm held her close, broad hand wrapped around hers, and whose precious heartbeat thrummed against her shoulder. She stared straight ahead and didn't move, absorbing every minute detail of the touch of his body. This was a dream; there was no need to scold herself; to leave at once; to worry about what anyone else thought, catching cold, or even the constant dangers that followed this man's ascent to power through everything.

More than anything, she wanted to turn around and see his face.

She wanted to roll over and tuck her head beneath his, against his chest, lay her arm across his waist and his hips like she'd done with other men who were not him. She wanted to turn and kiss his face, his closed eyes, his lips relaxed in sleep from their severe expression. She wanted to be able to love him in the way any other couple could, body and soul, _'til death do us part_.

She wanted to turn and see his face, but she couldn't, because then the dream would end.

XXXX


	13. Morning After XPart OneX

Well, now that I've lost my to-die-for motivation, and it's summer, I'm gonna find it harder to update….

but it's _summer_, so I must proceed!!

Thanks for all the reviews on the last chapter. I think there are at least 14 by now…. which is SOOO freakin' awesome. –thinks– But don't think I only care about you for the reviews!! I also appreciate my reader's SOULS…

—Insanity MUCH??—

XXXX

Chapter Thirteen: Morning After (Part One)

XXXX

It was raining when Riza awoke, still tired.

So it was just a dream after all, she thought.

…And that would be enough of THAT. It was times like these that she was awfully glad that _nobody_ saw what went on in her brain when she wasn't in control of it. It was silly, Riza thought, and proceeded to banish the idea from her mind. She wasn't disappointed in the least—

Then she saw the room: the curtains slightly drawn on the window which was _not_ to her left: the bathroom walls which were on the wrong side entirely…

But— Riza found herself thinking—where was…?

She rolled out of bed, suddenly quite awake, the chill in the air hitting her limbs as soon as she was out of the warmth of the blankets. Trying her best not to shiver, Riza marched across the cold floor and through the open room door, only stopping once she'd reached the side of the bed—

—_her_ bed!

She stood, staring down at it. This was utterly ridiculous. Last night—but there was no need to go there… She would deal with this problem first, before moving on to her own odd mental issues.

Leaning over, Riza briskly shook the shoulder of the vaguely-human lump under the covers. A few moments and some brief mental cursing later, and a head appeared, mumbling something vague: "…ugh…it's too early…Hawk—?"

"Get up, Sir," Riza said to a only-marginally-more-than-comatose Roy Mustang.

"Why?" He blinked blearily at her, strands of black hair splayed across his face.

"You're in my room, Sir."

The dark eyes flickered vaguely around the room and then rolled vaguely to her face, accompanied by a sigh. Riza watched with mounting annoyance—something had to be done about this, right now... her thoughts were interrupted when he spoke:

"Hmm... Yes. Yes, I am."

"You're in my _bed_, Sir."

He looked at her.

"Not right now, Lieutenant," the Colonel said, as if he'd reached a decision. "In case you've forgotten, I'm sick. Don't want you to catch it too…"

Riza stepped back from the bed, carefully removing her hand from Mustang's shoulder. "Obviously, Sir," she said, "you're still delirious. I'll get you some more medicine, so just go back to sleep." The situation was very serious indeed—probably too much so to move him. She would just have to make sure none of their subordinates came into the room. And if they did…? There was nothing to tell anyway…

From his inordinarily low vantage point, Roy watched her normally brisk form shuffling a-little-less-than-briskly toward the bathroom—and from there, he supposed, to the medicine kit… Consciousness hovered just out of his reach. He tried to remember the reason behind the feeling of unrest that was tickling his brain…

Oh, wait.

"Damn!"

An exlamation from the other side of the room alerted Riza to the fact that she was, indeed, awake. She pulled her face out of the medicine kit, blearily wondering why her 'shaking-off-the-tiredness' mode wasn't functioning, and padded into the other room again, shivering.

The Colonel was standing—slumping to the side of the bed, covers in a pile on one end, loosely fitting nightclothes forming puddling wrinkles around his limbs.

"Lieutenant," he said as she came out of the bathroom again, "Get in bed now."

"Sir?"

"That's an order—"

"Sir, I don't think that's necessary."

That _light_ came on in her red-brown eyes, and she straigtened and moved slightly quicker, muttering something about medicine, fevers, and rest. Roy glared. This wouldn't do at all. The whole reason he'd gone to all that trouble last night was for her to get more rest—he wasn't going to have it thwarted now. He cut off her incoherent babble as she drew level with him, looking down at her through his still-messy hair:

"Lieutenant, listen to yourself! You need to get more sleep. Go back to bed."

"Sir, I haven't woken up in the morning and gone back to sleep since…well…you see, it's been so long, I can't even remember the last time--"

"You will today."

"—and I see no reason to start now—"

If Roy hadn't been feeling quite so terrible, he never would've attempted to actually bodily move the First Lieutenant. Then again, if she hadn't been quite so tired, it would've done what he'd expected it to, which was absolutely nothing.

"Go—back—to—bed—" Roy growled, grabbed her shoulder, and lost his balance as she stumbled, stomach flipping sideways.

Fortunately, or perhaps not so fortunately, the bed was there to break their fall.

"I thought, Sir," Riza coughed, blowing someone's hair—she couldn't tell whose—out of her mouth, "that you were 'too sick'."

"I _am_, so stop moving!" Roy's stomach was refusing to coordinate with his brain. He shut his eyes and didn't move, which helped very little, seeing as though the woman squashed between him and the bed kept writhing around, trying to untangle herself. "—I'd rather not throw up on you, Lieutenant."

She stopped moving quite so much, muttering something that Roy didn't catch, since he was concentrating on settling his stomach. He shuffled his face gingerly to the side for air, feeling her body rising and falling underneath his chest each time she inhaled. Which really wasn't helping him feel better…

"Sir, do you think you could get off me now?"

"I'm afraid to."

"You can go throw up in the toilet." She was poking him in the shoulder, and not gently.

"I'll take my chances here, thanks…argh!"

The poking redoubled. Roy rolled to the side, gritting his teeth, although in actuality, he supposed his stomach was feeling a little better… He chanced opening his eyes.

A few inches away from his face, Riza Hawkeye stared levelly at him, bright hair falling across her face and over the bridge of her nose. "Lieutenant," he asked, watching, "Are you sure you aren't sick? You look like you have a fever."

"I'll be fine, Sir, as soon as you get off me."

If he'd had a free hand—one was supporting his shoulder, keeping his face from planting in the blankets, and the other was somewhere on the other side of Hawkeye, along with that whole half of his body—he might've touched her forehead, just to check. This was the sort of thing she would lie about, after all.

He peered into her eyes, trying to detect— "Are you sure?"

"Absolutely, Sir—eep!"

With an excited yap, a black-and-white something scrabbled over Roy's back and at Riza's face. Awoken by the commotion from his resting place on the chair, Black Hayate proceeded to prance about Riza's head on the bedspread, jiggling the mattress and plastering her face with his tongue.

Spitting dog hair out of his mouth courtesy of Hayate's wildly churning tail, Roy rolled off the edge of the bed and slouched to the chair, his stomach turning all over again.

XXXX

"The generator's out?" Master Sergeant Kain Fuery asked. "Why didn't you say something sooner?!"

Gloria shrugged, flapping the sides of her voluminous striped scarf. "I dunno. It's not important, I suppose. It's still going to be _freezing! _My boss is still looking for someone to fix it, but she'll probably scare them all away…"

The dark-haired man gazed at her from behind his glasses, leaning against the side of the reception booth, which she was manning once again.

He smiled. "Think I could take a look at it? Hehe, I know a little about this sort of thing…"

"Could you…'look at it'…?" The woman trailed off, a calculating expression on her face, then snorted. "_Why didn't you say something sooner_?"

XXXX

A/N Soo… sorry for the lack of updates. Part two is very, veery close to being finished. It'll be posted tomorrow if humanly possible….

This is another split chapter XD… And this time, I really can say that it's only because of length, not any large amount of incompletion…! I'm so happy! –denial, anyone?--

Anyway, I'm not too sure about the beginning, only because it was inhumanly late when I wrote it, and it frightens me too much to proofread it sufficiently. Hope you like, & if the outcry is too strong, I suppose I'll have to change the style up a bit to match the rest of the story… --sigh—

Huggles!

AA-M


	14. Morning After XPart TwoX

A/N: On with the chapter! I told you it was almost done!!

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Chapter Fourtteen: Morning After (Part Two)

XXXX

If it was cold in the hotel, it was a refrigerator in the basement. Fuery avoided puddles by the glistening streaks of light his flashlight sent across them, listening to the hum of the auxilliary generator, which thankfully could power the lights.

"What," he'd asked Gloria, finding a flashlight for him after his initial trip to the generator room, "Did they blow it out powering the ball last night?"

"It's entirely possible—I have no idea about these things. Suppose I should learn sometime, in case the power ever goes out in my apartment…" She shrugged, hair rippling over her back—it was out of the customary bun, which was, she said, too cold. At the moment, anyway.

"Maybe I could teach you sometime," he'd said without thinking.

"You'd better do it soon, then. You guys are leaving tomorrow, right?"

"Oh—you're right. Funny, I didn't even think about it—yes, we're going back to HQ tomorrow. It'll be good to be back at work—hehe—vacation almost makes you miss it..."

"Oh, I see…" She laughed lightly after a prolonged moment. "…Only you would enjoy the thought of going back to work, Mr. Fuery."

Kain fumbled his flashlight and splashed unhappily through a puddle to reach the main generator, drenching his feet with icy water. There was nothing left to do but get this thing fixed. Stupid, stupid…!

XXXX

"Stupid, stupid," Gloria muttered to herself, shuffling papers ferociously across the desk in search of a file. She must not have written it down—the elderly couple in front of her swore they'd had a reservation, but she hadn't found it listed. Her boss would murder her if they were kept standing there, looking at her in kindly but bewildered insistence, for much longer. It was all her fault. And in any case, it was no use, because he probably had his own job to do and couldn't afford the time to…

"Argh!" The problem was, Gloria decided calmly, that she couldn't pay attention.

One of the couple, the older man, reached out one weathered hand and patted hers sympathetically, then took the clipboard of reservations from the desk and offered it to his wife for perusal. "I'm so sorry, Sir, Ma'am," Gloria babbled. "I know you had a reservation, I just need to find it. I'll get it cleared up as quickly as possible—please don't worry."

"Gloria!"

"Young lady," the old man said—

"What?" she asked, utterly mystified.

"Hey, Gloria, have you seen Fuery?" It was Lieutenant Havoc; she saw him jogging up out of the corner of her eye.

The old woman said, pointing with one wrinkled finger to a name on the list, "Is this us?"

Gloria ignored the man walking up behind her to peer closely at the list: Norman—no, _Dorman_—she'd misread it the first time…

"Oh, I'm so sorry. Thank you so much." the brunette girl said, choking back unexpected tears of relief. She was overreacting to this. Way, way overreacting. "I'll get your room keys right away, Mr. & Mrs. Dorman."

She could feel the Lieutenant's presence behind her as she procured the listed keys from the box beneath the counter, rather desperately clinging to cheerfulness. "Have a good day!" she called to the couple, advancing rather haphazardly towards the ground-flor rooms of the hotel; the old man was clutching a suitcase in one hand, and his wife's arm in the other. They were chuckling at something.

Hmph. It had better not be her. "He's in the basement," she answered, turning and cutting off Havoc's attempt to re-phrase his question.

"What, got him chained up in there?" Havoc laughed. "It's the only way you'll ever get him to come out and say it, anyway. What a wuss."

"…_fixing the generator,_" Gloria said deliberately, looking sourly up at the man.

"Oh, I see. Well, that's good—it was freezing last night."

"Yes, it…Say _what_?"

"Huh?"

"You said," Gloria said, brain finally processing something, "_It's the only way you'll get him to come out and say it._"

"Oh, that." Jean shook his head and looked away. "You'd think if he was going to steal things from me, he'd at least have the guts to go through with…uhh…"

Gloria was staring up at him with an intense calculation in her brown eyes. Then she looked at her watch.

"My shift ends in fifteen minutes," she said. "Mr. Havoc, stay here, would you? The reservation list is there…hardly anyone comes at this time of day anyway…" A clipboard was shoved into his hands; the blonde man barely had time to keep it from clattering to the ground before she was off, clutching her scarf, brown hair fluffing.

The man stared down at the clipboard in disgust and tentatively leaned against the booth, praying that no one came. He shuddered as a mildly disturbing thought surfaced in his brain:

He said out loud, "I swear, Hawkeye's rubbing off on her."

XXXX

Fuery had only just succeeded in rolling his sleeves up, getting his face dirty, and not fixing the generator at all when footsteps echoed behind him on the stairs to the basement. One foot at a time, as if with hesitation; or maybe it was just caution, because a few steps down, there was a shriek, sounds of a scrabble, and a loud crash.

Fuery jumped, dropped his wrench, and splashed to the door as fast as he could without dropping the flashlight as well. Yanking on the door a few times served to jumpstart his brain—which had been functioning remarkably well until this morning—and he turned the handle and shone the light up into the darkened passageway.

"Dammit," Gloria said, supporting herself against the passageway wall. She turned and looked at him with a frown. "I was doing just fine until now." Her breath misted out in front of her in the harsh yellow light of the flashlight.

"Hello," Fuery said; thought for a moment, bent and picked something up off the ground at the bottom of the stairs. "You dropped your scarf."

"Oh, sorry."

"You don't need to apologize—here, take it!"

"Um, alright." She slipped off the last step in front of him, reaching for the bundle of fabric, of which Kain forgot utterly to let go. This was probably acceptable, however, as he was a bit occupied kissing her.

After a period of time which the rational part of Fuery's brain decided probably was a lot shorter than it seemed—not that it counted—the woman pulled away and peered at his face, nearly her eye level but not quite. It was a good thing the flashlight was illuminating the puddle at their feet, since he could feel his face burning like an inferno.

"Um…"Gloria said, gathering her thoughts. Her hands were still tangled among his in the scarf, which didn't seem to be a problem at the moment. "So. Are you going to ask me out now?"

XXXX

Ten minutes later, someone else pounded on the basement door.

"Hey, Fuery, Gloria! If you're done making out, get over here!"

Conversation, which had almost returned to a normal level—Gloria was sitting on a water pipe and trying to catch what Kain was saying through the disassembled generator—suddenly became rather strained.

Covered in dust and grease, Fuery came stomping up out of the basement, followed by Gloria, both of them shivering and furiously crimson. Lieutenant Havoc, leaning against the wall outside the stairway's outer door, grinned and held out one hand to Breda, slumping next to him.

"Shut up," Breda grumbled, slapping a few crunched bills into his palm.

Fuery scowled.

Gloria did more than scowl; marching across the floor to Fuery's side, she tucked her arm underneath his and looked at Havoc—"Well," she said, "I haven't heard of _you_ kissing anyone lately. Don't worry about him, Kain," she added to Fuery, slumped over her arm in a cloud of sudden despair, "He's just jealous."

Havoc was suddenly hit with a fit of coughing.

"Don't die," Breda said, snorting under his breath. "Choking on something, Hav? You look a little…red."

"Do you need some water?" Gloria asked helpfully, wrapping her arm more tightly around the waist of her Master Sergeant, who sighed in defeat.

"Congratulations," Havoc coughed.

XXXX

"I still have to fix the generator," Fuery reminded Havoc as the group strode down the hallways. "So hurry up with whatever it is that you want us to see."

Havoc smirked, turning down the passageway that their rooms lined. "You guys took a while. Hopefully they're still at it."

Several of the group stopped moving abruptly.

"Aww, get your mind outta the gutter," Breda snorted, knocking gently at Colonel Mustang's door.

It opened to reveal Falman's face. "What took you so long? It's been twenty-eight minutes!"

"At least you had entertainment," Havoc said. Reluctantly, Fuery and Gloria followed them into the room, where the rest of Mustang and Hawkeye's subordinates were gathered at the side of the inner wall door.

The aformentioned superiors were, indeed, in the room. The bed was occupied by First Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye, half out of the covers, apparently asleep; slumping in the chair next to it, Colonel Roy Mustang was a lumpy bundle of blankets, apparently taken from his own room.

"They're…asleep?" Fuery asked.

"Shh! Watch!"

Time passed slowly until the First Lieutenant's eyes flicked suddenly open. Easing herself up off the pillow, she inched one hand to the side of the covers with excruciating slowness, furtively tugging the blanket off her body—

"_No_, you don't," Mustang's voice rasped, and the pile of blankets moved lumpishly, thrusting out a hand and shoving her weakly back down onto the pillow via the forehead.

"Go to sleep, Sir," Hawkeye mumbled. "I told you, I'll be _fine_."

"And _I_ told _you_," the man said, "Not unless you _stay in bed_. Is it so hard to comprehend?"

"Alright, Sir…"

"You're just saying that, Lieutenant."

"_Go to sleep, Sir._"

"_Haven't we been through this already, Lieutenant?_"

Silence.

Feury and Gloria stared in open-mouthed disbelief; the rest of Hawkeye and Mustang's subordinates were hurriedly stifling hysterical laughter.

"They've been doing this the whole time…?" Gloria asked, answered by mute nods.

"Ever since we found them…" Breda trailed off as Hawkeye tried to escape again, to be greeted by the same fate.

"Colonel, please, I'm fine."

"You're fine, my ass. Don't you dare move."

"Go back to bed, Sir. You need to rest."

"That's what I've been saying about _you_ the entire time!"

"BOTH OF YOU—" Gloria screamed, banging the door open, "_SHUT UP AND GO TO SLEEP_!"

Everyone jumped; Roy fell halfway off his chair with a curse.

Hawkeye, finally able to sit up, blinked blearily at her scattered subordinates, watching them massage their ringing ears. Her eyes flicked over the rest of them to Gloria, who had managed to hold on to Feury the entire time. She smiled.

"Good morning. Good for you, Master Sergeant."

XXXX

A/N: Whew!

Mwahaha, remember the warning to lemon fans?? (if not, see A/N for chapter one…) I'm fulfilling it now, aren't i?? Mwahaha!

--deliriously raves--

I'm rather sorry about the spontaneous kissing scene; I wasn't planning it, but i guess i had to go with my gut on that one. hopefully you enjoyed it anyway, since once again i'm a little afraid to proofread. (the last one i numbed my brain with late-nightness and ended up editing anyway, and i thought it turned out okay.)

Review, pweez, people! & thanks for reading!

AA-M


	15. Rainwater

A/N: I know, I know. I haven't updated this thing since JULY!! since what in a few hours will be LAST YEAR!!

I'M SORRY!!!

And just so everybody's clear, I have no clue what's going to happen next…so I guess I'll just make it up as I go along. Which might give you a clue as to why I haven't updated for six months—but is STILL no excuse—

I'M SORRY!!!

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Chapter Fifteen: Rainwater

XXXX

"Dammit!"

Second Lieutenant Jean Havoc slapped his window in annoyance. Fingers of watery sunlight streamed around his fingers through the still-dripping glass.

"What'samatter, Hav?" Hearing the commotion, Second Lieutenant Heymans Breda poked his head through the door between their rooms, halfway through folding a pair of red-and-white striped boxers.

"We've been on break for _five days_ and only _now_ does it decide to stop _raining_!"

Breda snorted in sympathy, tossed the clothes into his suitcase, and gathered some more junk off the floor of his room. It was nine o'clock in the morning, and the group was—supposedly—packing up. Although only Breda and Havoc were doing much: Fuery had finished early and rushed off to have breakfast with Gloria; Falman and Hawkeye could hardly make their rooms any _cleaner_; and Colonel Mustang was happily wasting more military money in another of his now-famous showers.

"And Fuerygot the only cute girl for miles!" Havoc paused to consider his misfortunes, flopping down on his unmade bed; at length he added, "_And_ this is a nonsmoking room! This is the worst vacation I've ever had!"

At which Breda growled, "It could be worse. You could have actually _paid_ me all the money you owe me."

"Hey, hey, _I _was the one who said he would get a fever. I don't owe you _bull_."

"No, you didn't say some of them would get fevers—you said all of them would."

"Well…he complains enough for all of them…!"

XXXX

Roy was feeling much better today. Perhaps that had to do with getting somewhere around twelve hours of sleep yesterday. At the entire group's insistence—spearheaded by the brunette girl, Gloria, who between the day of the presentation and the next morning had for some reason grown a backbone that rivaled Riza Hawkeye's—he'd been removed from First Lieutenant's room, promptly drowned in cold medication and stuffed into his own bed. The rest of the day had, predictably, been a blur.

He finally stepped out of the shower at 10:10, and was surprised to see a trickle of yellow sunlight filtering in through his closed curtains. The rain was stopping. Of course—the light had been a hesitant honey gold at six last evening, when he dazedly got up to ask the First Lieutenant for enough medicine to make sure he slept the rest of the night through as well.

He hadn't counted on her being asleep, curled halfway under the covers on her side, her blonde hair trying to pull free of the clip that she obviously hadn't thought to take out. There was a paperback lying open on the pillow next to her head. Roy didn't look at it, just hazily sat down in the chair that was still next to her bed and imagined her eyes opening and gazing across the pillow at him.

The dream he'd had the first night—the one with Aliena in it. In the suburbs, and the army was coming. The bad army, in the way of dreams. Roy had told her to leave, and she'd just smiled in the sunlight and continued pruning the roses: beautiful red rose bushes. Roy told her to leave—he threatened—he caught her arm and pulled, but it was her hair, the full, long silky hair that fell to the small of her back and was caught in the thorns, holding the whole dream up. Which he'd thought was odd, when he woke up, because he'd loved Aliena's hair. It was beautiful—the color of sunset and earth.

It was the color, he'd realized for the first time at six the previous evening, of Riza Hawkeye's eyes.

XXXX

Yesterday felt like a dream. Mellow and secluded and gentle as an embrace.

Not that that had happened to her in a while, Lieutenant Hawkeye thought ruefully as she stepped briskly out into the nippy air at 10:17 on the last morning—unless dancing counted. Hanging low above her, huge ragged clouds billowed across the sky, blue and dark grey underneath but dazzling white on the edges, where wind-chased sunlight was working its way down to the concrete earth. It had been sprinkling earlier, but, at least in front of the Sherman's Inn, the air was clear.

Hayate lapped thoughtfully at dirty puddles, tugging at his leash, and Riza let him direct her steps. She kept track of the way they went automatically, without thinking. It was a habit. Well, she thought, there was one vacation gone. And all that she'd accomplished was capturing an escaped dog, breaking into her own hotel, breaking her own sleep routine, and getting an unexpected girlfriend for Kain Fuery. And— Her thoughts abruptly halted. _That_ was not an accomplishment. Though at the time it had certainly been—

Ahem.

"Black Hayate," Riza said severely to the dog, who was straining at his leash to sniff some junk-filled street corner, "I think we need to keep moving."

By the time 10:42 had rolled around, so had the clouds. Riza glared resignedly at the sky as a shadow passed over the morning sunlight for the third or fourth time in as many minutes, and this time remained there, glaring darkly back. It looked like the storm was going to have one last go at her rapidly dwindling five-day weekend.

XXXX

Checkout time was 12:30. At 10:16 Roy reluctantly put civilian clothes on, trying to ignore the sense that there was something important he had to do. So much for vacation—the military was determined to leech everything it could from him, no matter what the circumstances. Well, he'd signed up for it, the Colonel thought bitterly as he packed his things. He piled all his belongings on the bed, looking at each item before indiscriminately tossing it into the suitcase. He could pretend to himself that there would be time to organize it when he got home.

Going back to the real world wasn't something he felt like doing right now.

It was 10:34 by the time Roy barged through Hawkeye's room on the way to Breda and Havoc's side, but the woman wasn't there; he found Falman instead, playing cards with the other two. Annoyed, the Colonel barked at the men to finish packing and, as a side-note, asked where the First Lieutenant was: on a walk.

"Well," Roy said, "Checkout time is 12:30. She'll be back before then."

He left them to their game, meeting Gloria and Fuery coming up the lobby stairway as he went down—they were going to join his other subordinates.

"Miss Hawkeye left at about 10:15," Gloria said, when Roy didn't ask.

"She'll be back before checkout time," the man told her curtly. "She's never late."

"Of course. But it looks like it's going to start raining again—I hope she brought an umbrella." Fuery replied this time, pushing his glasses up on his nose without meeting Roy's eyes. Gloria said concernedly, "I didn't see one when she left. She should've taken the one by the reception desk—nobody would mind."

Colonel Mustang frowned at the two of them, unabashedly arm in arm in the glowing entrance hall.

"Don't worry," he said. "I'll take it to her."

XXXX

At 10:50, it began to rain again. No, it began to pour.

Roy swore as he plunged out into the cold, feeling under attack, umbrella or no. The storm was on its way out—he could see just sunlight away to the east—and it wasn't going down without a fight. All around him, pedestrians were tucking themselves into stores and under awnings, popping umbrellas or huddling into coats—vacating the sidewalks where they could.

The man trekked on, resigned to the fact that his pants and shoes would be soaked. Another good pair of ordinary pants ruined. Oh well—it wasn't like he wore them more than once a year. These were his vacation pants, after all. Rain pounded the umbrella, as though the drops were heavy coins falling from the skies; soon Roy's feet were numb, and water stains spread up his pants, as predicted.

How had he gotten himself into this? He didn't know where she was, where she would've gone, or why he was out here in this deluge with an umbrella when it was the other way around, when she was his subordinate, not the other way around…

And then he turned a corner and, scanning the sheets of rain, he saw her.

XXXX

Black Hayate paced back and forth and whined at the downpour.

"We're just going to have to wait it out, boy," Riza said, huddling into her sweater, which clung to her skin, wet and useless. But the dog didn't hear her; her words were eaten by the water battering the tiny corrugated tin shop awning they had sheltered under. She'd tried to get back to the hotel, but it was just too cold. There was plenty of time until she had to go back, and the downpour wasn't likely to last. People rushed by occasionally, clutching umbrellas or coats over their heads; but nobody seemed to give pause for the shadows beyond the miniature waterfalls now feathering off the tin awning. It was oddly peaceful.

They were in their own little world.

She bent for a few minutes to stroke the dog's water-plastered black and white fur; when she looked up again, someone was standing at the edge of that world, a silhouette under an umbrella.

The blonde woman straightened slowly and walked to him, clothes creasing with the motion, curving with her body; her light hair was plastered to her head and leaking the occasional teardrop of rainwater down her face, sliding past serene red-brown eyes, over her cheekbones, the bridge of her nose, her lips…

It was the last day of vacation and the rain was pouring so hard that when her lips moved, Roy couldn't hear the few words she said. But that was alright, because if he'd heard her, he might've had to face reality, which was moving forward at breakneck speed behind the curtains of rain.

Instead he kissed her cold mouth, before she could close it or make any other inaudible gibberish, tasting rainwater. That the umbrella got lost somehow didn't matter, because there was a woman in his arms who kissed him back in disbelief, gently, thoroughly.

There was no help from the deluging rain of the world outside, but they had enough warmth between them to suffice. They sat underneath the awning without speaking, holding each other close, wrapped in Roy's coat. Riza's sopping hair was slowly spreading a giant stain in his shirt, where he cradled her head in the crook between his shoulder and neck. Her eyes were closed; she listened to his heart beat and felt nothing but a powerful desire to keep it beating that way forever.

The rain stopped. Riza opened her eyes to sunshine peeking through gaps in the clouds and Black Hayate gnawing happily on the wooden handle of a still-open umbrella that spun lazily back and forth on the rain-slick sidewalk.

Reluctantly, Roy removed his arms from her waist so the woman could stand up and stare down at him with level eyes the color of sunset and earth. She smiled.

"The umbrella's for you," Roy said.

XXXX

Colonel Mustang arrived at the hotel five minutes later than First Lieutenant Hawkeye; he found her explaining to a sighing Gloria how her umbrella had gotten knobbly bite marks all around the handle. He walked up behind them.

"Oh, good, Sir, you're back," Hawkeye said seriously. "I was beginning to wonder if we needed to send a search party."

Roy glared at Gloria's giggle. "It's 12:13," he informed them, looking at his watch. "Check out's at 12:30—everyone else is already done packing. Are you ready to leave, Lieutenant?"

"Are _you_ packed, Sir?"

"Yes."

"Good," she said. "So am I."

XXXX

Happy (Belated) New Year, Everybody!!

AA-M


	16. Epilogue: Not Funny

Well, on my profile I said I'd start posting things again when I was in college. I'm in college now—on the other side of the country, woot!—and I'm trying to make good on this. That is, this story WILL be finished, shammit! And while the last chapter was, in essence, basically the last chapter, I can add some closure here, or something…. idk, it just needs to be finished. 3

Thanks for all your reviews and support—thanks anyone who is actually still reading for sticking with it! I know I wouldn't have finished this story without them. Many apologies for the lack of updates lately…because my reviewers deserve more. You guys always make me feel like I can succeed! Thanks so much for reading! At long last—on with the fic!

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Epilogue: Not Funny

XXXX

They were in two cars: Havoc, Falman, and Breda one and Fuery, Mustang and Hawkeye in the other. The weather was wonderful, the sun was shining; the roads were muddy, and the minds of the cars' occupants similar.

"Man," Second Lieutenant Breda said, fanning himself with a pamphlet appropriated from Sherman's Inn, "_Now_ it decides to be sunny? I hate this."

Second Lieutenant Jean Havoc, navigating the potholes on the road with a languid attention to the steering wheel, snorted. "Oh, poor Bredykins! The sun! What could be _worse_?"

"I think it's fairly decent weather, considering the—_oof_—past week." Warrant Officer Vato Falman held himself to the seat as the car struggled over a particularly violent bump. The windows he gazed out of were spotted with little drops of minerals left behind by dried-up raindrops. Beyond them, the countryside might've been romantic if it were flashing by too quickly to distinguish the mud-splattered pedestrians and shacks along the roadside; they all rattled by in jolts instead, disconsolately apparent in the brightness of the day.

"Watch it, Hav," Breda growled. "You're gonna run us off the road."

"You wanna bet?"

"Hell yes. Twenty that we never make it back to Central."

"We're in the military, Breda," Havoc said, a grin cracking his long face. "Twenty-five that if we don't, it's not my fault."

"Th-that's not funny," Falman squawked, then cried, "Ack!" when the vehicle jostled once more.

"Yes it is!"

"What's really funny is Havoc's love life!"

"…Hey!…_Hey!_…_Look!_ A giant puddle! Let's go see how _deep_ it is, Bredykins!"

"What—Second Lieutenant—hey—this isn't a good idea! Augh!"

Going home now was hideously unromantic, Master Sergeant Kain Fuery was thinking, several miles of mud and potholes behind them—but that was life. Gloria was going to be several hours away from him once again. And what could it be to him? To be honest, he'd barely gotten to know her. More time—if only there was more time. She was amazing, after all. Her voice, her dancing, her hysterical laughter, her random expletives… It would work in a perfect world. He wanted it to work. The world wasn't perfect. Things didn't add up.

Fuery was driving more carefully, if no less distractedly, than Havoc. This was more forgiving on everyone's backsides; it had the added quality, however, of being slower. On the right side of the backseat Colonel Roy Mustang tapped his fingers on the upholstery, his hand feeling naked exposed to the streaming sunlight without a glove. Reality was catching back up, and he didn't like it.

"Master Sergeant! Can't this thing go any faster?"

Across the seat from him, First Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye was turned out the window, the fall of her hair mimicking the fall of the sunlight on three people in a little car chugging down a muddy road. "Master Sergeant," she said, "Please ignore the Colonel. He may still be sick. We can't have vomit on the seats."

"Uh…yes, sir!" Fuery said.

"Yes, sir, _who_?" Roy snapped.

"Uh, I don't know!…I mean—"

"Fuery! What kind of a subordinate _are_ you?"

Hawkeye said, "The sensible kind, sir."

"The slow kind."

"The _alive_ kind."

The car's frame rattled disjointedly, despite Fuery's redoubled attempts to control it.

"That isn't funny, Lieutenant."

"No, Colonel," the woman said. "It's not."

She turned away from the window to look at him, her red-brown eyes calmly repaying his gaze with their own. She was right, Roy thought. They were both right. Nothing about it was funny. A car accident was the least of their worries. The only thing in between them and their worries, right now, was a long stretch of highway like a river of mud. And, of course, one another.

"Lieutenant—" Mustang started, but before any more of his sentence came out a barrage of coughing wracked his body. Obviously his cold was just beginning to die down. Riza looked on in consternation, concerned but not worried; like everyone, the man had gotten colds before. It wouldn't kill him.

On the other hand, she might have to watch out about catching one herself—exchange of body fluids could do that to one, after all. With a conscious effort the First Lieutenant averted her eyes from her superior officer's doubled-over frame and turned them back out the window. There was no reason Mustang had to see her face right now. She was a grown woman and she wasn't blushing.

Besides, Riza thought, listening as the Colonel's hacking subsided into a mild wheeze, nothing had changed. There was nothing between them that was unknown. One kiss was for here and now, for a five-day weekend when nothing really mattered. Already it was being converted to a memory, one she'd store up in the vault where she kept every glance, every conversation over paperwork, every argument, every terrified scream of _Lieutenant!_, every bullet she'd fired and every tear she'd cried for Roy Mustang: the fuel cell inside her that kept her going. _Want_ was not part of it. That was a figment of a dream where they slept next to each other to fight the outside cold, nothing more than a fleeting dream sensation of skin, collarbone, soft tight-muscled arms, beating heart, breathing lips… His lips warming the rainwater off hers and melting away the numbness of cold with motion, hot, insistent, overwhelming, sending feeling coursing through her entire body—

Memories, Riza thought. She said, "What were you going to say, sir?"

"Lieutenant, was it worth it?"

"What, sir?"

"A five-day weekend."

"There'll be a mountain of paperwork to do when we get back," Riza said.

Roy glanced over at her face, but it was hidden again. Probably for the best. "I see," he said levelly.

"Yes, sir. Yes, it was."

"Good."

The two cars continued on in the afternoon sun. It wasn't fun and it wasn't funny, but there was work to do.

XXXX


End file.
